Default Semantics: Pragmatic Enrichment and Applications

1. DTAL Tuesday Colloquium, 15 November 2011 Default Semantics and Selected Applications Kasia M. Jaszczolt

2. (1) Some British people like cricket. (1a) Some but not all British people like cricket. (2) Tom dropped a camera and it broke. (2a) Tom dropped a camera and as a result it broke. (3) Everybody read Frege. (3a)Every member of the research groupread Frege.

3. (4)Child to mother: Everybody has a bike. (4a) All of the child’s friends have bikes. (4b) Many/most of the child’s classmates have bikes. (4c)The mother should consider buying her son a bike. (4d) Cycling is a popular form of exercise among children.

4. (4)Child to mother: Everybody has a bike. (4a)All of the child’s friends have bikes. (4b) Many/most of the child’s classmates have bikes. (4c)The mother should consider buying her son a bike. (4d) Cycling is a popular form of exercise among children.

5. Contextualism, standard view: The logical form becomes enriched/modulated as a result of pragmatic inference and the entire semantic/pragmatic product becomes subjected to the truth-conditional analysis.

6. The logical form becomes ?enriched/modulatedas a result of pragmatic inference and the entire semantic/pragmatic product becomes subjected to the truth-conditional analysis.

7. ? How far can the logical form be extended? ‘How much pragmatics’ is allowed in the semantic representation?

9. The logical form of the sentence can not only be extended but also replaced by a new semantic representation when the primary, intended meaning demands it. Such extensions or substitutions are primary meanings and their representations are merger representations in Default Semantics.There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations.

10. Outline • Default Semantics • unit of analysis • sources of information contributing to the unit • pragmatic compositionality • merger representations: towards a formalization

11. Outline • Default Semantics • unit of analysis • sources of information contributing to the unit • pragmatic compositionality • merger representations: towards a formalization • Selected applications: • temporal reference • reports on epistemic attitudes (‘A believes that B s’) • beliefs de se: 1st person reference and ‘cognitive access to oneself’

12. Radical Contextualism • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined.

13. Radical Contextualism • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • The object of study of a theory of meaning is a pragmatically modified representation. (Default Semantics is a radical contextualist theory.)

14. Radical Contextualism • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (Default Semantics is a radical contextualist theory). • There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study.

15. Interim summary • The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. • This pragmatically modified representation is an object of study of a theory of meaning (Default Semantics is a radical contextualist theory). • There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study. • Discourse meaning is construed as meaning intended by the Model Speaker and recovered by Model Addressee.

16. (5)Child: Can I go to see Contagion? Mother: You are too small. (5a) The child is too small to see the film Contagion in the cinema. (5b)The child can’t go to see the film.

17. (5)Child: Can I go to see Contagion? Mother: You are too small. (5a) The child is too small to see the film Contagion in the cinema. (5b)The child can’t go to see the film.

18. Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended content through a proposition which is not syntactically restricted. Experimental evidence: Nicolle and Clark 1999 Pitts 2005 Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007

19. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations.

20. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing.

21. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations.

22. Merger Representation  • Primary meanings are modelled as the so-called merger representations. • The outputs of sources of information about meaning merge and all the outputs are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned. • Merger representations have the status of mental representations. • They have a compositional structure.

23. Sources of information for  (i) world knowledge (WK) (ii) word meaning and sentence structure (WS) (iii) situation of discourse (SD) (iv) properties of the human inferential system (IS) (v) stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture (SC)

24. Inferential System (6) The winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize wrote The Sense of an Ending. (6a)Julian Barnes wroteThe Sense of an Ending. psychologism

26. The model of sources of information can be mapped onto types of processes that produce the merger representation  of the primary meaning and the additional (secondary) meanings.

28. Mapping between sources and processes WK  SCWD or CPI SC  SCWD or CPI WS  WS (logical form) SD  CPI IS  CD In building merger representations DS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the components of  with a subscript standing for the type of processing.

29. Selected applications of DS definite descriptions proper names belief reports (de re/de dicto, de se) negation and other sentential connectives presupposition number terms temporal reference and modality

30. Languages: English, Korean, Thai, Persian, Russian, Polish, French, German, Italian

31. Temporal reference

33. Main questions • Is the human concept of time a universal concept? • Is it primitive or composed of simpler concepts? • How do linguistic expressions of time reflect it?

34. Main questions • Is the human concept of time a universal concept? Probably yes • Is it primitive or composed of simpler concepts? Supervenient on properties of modality • How do linguistic expressions of time reflect it? Representations in Default Semantics

35. What is expressed in the lexicon in one language may be expressed by grammar in another. What is expressed overtly in onelanguage may be left to pragmatic inference or default interpretation in another.

36. Swahili: consecutive tense marker ka (7) a. …wa-Ingerezawa-li-wa-chukuawa-le maiti, 3Pl-British 3Pl-Past-3Pl-take 3Pl-Dem corpses ‘…then the British took the corpses, b. wa-ka-wa-tiakatikabaomoja, 3Pl-Cons-3Pl-put.on on board one put them on a flat board, c. wa-ka-ya-telemeshamaji-nikwautaratibu w-ote… 3Pl-Cons-3Pl-lower water-Loc with order 3Pl-all and lowered them steadily into the water…’ adapted from Givón (2005: 154)

37. (8) Lidia played a sonata. The audience applauded. e1 e2

38. St’àt’imcets [stɬɛtɬemxəʧ] (Lillooet Salish), British Columbia only future (kelh) – non-future distinction

39. Central Pomo Future can be realis or irrealis

40. Thai (9)m3ae:r3i:I kh2ian n3iy3ai: Mary write novel

41. Time as Modality: Supervenience supervenience of the concept of time on the concept of epistemic detachment (temporal properties on modal properties in semantics)

42. Merger Representations for the Past (10) Lidia went to a concert yesterday. (regular past) (11)This is what happened yesterday. Lidia goes to a concert, meets her school friend and tells her… (past of narration) (12) Lidia would have gone to a concert (then). (epistemic necessity past) (13) Lidia must have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic necessity past) (14) Lidia may have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past) (15) Lidia might have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past)

43. a cline of decreasing epistemic commitment

44. Fig. 3: Degree of epistemic commitment for selected expressions with past-time reference

45. ACCΔ ├ Σ ‘it is acceptable to the degree Δ that Σ is true’

46. Merger Representations for the Present (16) Lidia is at a concert now. (regular present) (17) Lidia will be at a concert now. (epistemic necessity present) (18) Lidia must be at a concert now. (epistemic necessity present) (19) Lidia may be at a concert now. (epistemic possibility present) (20) Lidia might be at a concert now. (epistemic possibility present)

47. Fig. 4: Degree of epistemic commitment for expressions with present-time reference

48. Fig. 5: Σ for example (17) ‘Lidia will be at a concert now’ (epistemic necessity present) Σ

49. Merger Representations for the Future (21) Lidia goes to a concert tomorrow evening. (‘tenseless’ future) (22) Lidia is going to a concert tomorrow evening. (futurate progressive) (23) Lidia is going to go to a concert tomorrow evening. (periphrastic future) (24) Lidia will go to a concert tomorrow evening. (regular future) (25) Lidia must be going to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic necessity future) (26) Lidia may go to a concert tomorrow evening.(epistemic possibility future) (27) Lidia might go to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic possibility future)

50. Fig. 6: Degree of modal detachment for selected expressions with future-time reference