1. Small recap

2. 2 Weak Referentiality The phenomenon whereby a phrase containing a noun does not allow standard anaphoric pick-up. Lola is listening to the radio. # It’s a bit old, but the sound is still great. John is watching television. # It’s a bit old, but the image is still great. Juan ha leido libros. # Eran muy interesantes. John has read books they_were very interesting

3. 3 Small recap Weak Referentiality The phenomenon whereby a phrase containing a noun does not allow standard anaphoric pick-up. Lola is listening to the radio. # It’s a bit old, but the sound is still great. John is watching television. # It’s a bit old, but the image is still great. Juan ha leido libros. # Eran muy interesantes. John has read books they_were very interesting Nor NP nor NumP nor DP seems to guarantee referentiality...

4. 4 Small recap Weak Referentiality The phenomenon whereby a phrase containing a noun does not allow standard anaphoric pick-up. Lola is listening to the radio. # It’s a bit old, but the sound is still great. John is watching television. # It’s a bit old, but the image is still great. Juan ha leido libros. # Eran muy interesantes. John has read books they_were very interesting Cases of weak referentiality urge us to probe the syntax-semantics interface of referentiality further.

5. 5 Small recap Weak Referentiality The phenomenon whereby a phrase containing a noun does not allow standard anaphoric pick-up. Topics treated during the course > (weak) referentiality and the lexicon-syntax-semantics interface > the mass-count distinction > the semantics of definiteness > the semantics of scope Other topics related to the project > the semantics of tense and aspect > the semantics of plurality > different kinds of meaning (presuppositions, implicatures,...)

6. 6 Small recap Invitation We invite you to think along, explore new paths, new ideas and think outside the box.

7. A small semantics quiz

8. 8 Guess the determiner... 1. P Q  x(P(x)&Q(x)) 2. P Q  x(Plural(x)&P(x)&Q(x)) 3. P Q  x(P(x)  Q(x)) 4. P Q  x(P(x)&  y(P(y)  y=x)&Q(x)) 5. P Q  x(  y(P(y)  y=x)&Q(x)) 6. P Q  x(P(x)&Q(x)) a some every the no

9. 9 Guess the truth conditions... 4. P Q  x(P(x)&  y(P(y)  y=x)&Q(x)) 5. P Q  x(  y(P(y)  y=x)&Q(x)) the > type =,,t>> PQ     PQ  PQ      PQ    TRUEFALSE

10. 10 Another way of representing definites 5. P Q  x(  y(P(y)  y=x)&Q(x)) > type =,,t>> > type =,e> 7. P  x(P(x)) > Takes a set and picks out the unique individual in that set. If such a unique individual is not available, the result is undefined.   PPP UNDEFINED

11. 11 Guess the truth conditions... PQ     PQ  PQ      PQ    TRUEFALSE The P is Q TRUEFALSE UNDEFINED

12. Carlson (1977)

13. 13 Background > semanticist (works at Rochester) > American

14. 14 Overview > BP is not the plural counterpart of a > BP is not even a normal indefinite > the generic and the existential reading of BPs are two sides of the same coin > how to connect the sides of the coin?

15. 15 Overview > BP is not the plural counterpart of a > BP is not even a normal indefinite

16. 16 Anticipated semantics If the bare plural were the plural of the singular indefinite...... we would expect it to behave semantically in the same way except for an extra condition of plurality.

17. 17 Opacity phenomena: a Minnie wishes to talk to a young psychiatrist. > Minnie’s wish is to talk to a young psychiatrist. > There is a young psychiatrist who is such that it is Minnie’s wish to talk to him. ok

18. 18 Opacity phenomena:  Minnie wishes to talk to young psychiatrists. > Minnie’s wish is to talk to young psychiatrists. > There are young psychiatrists that are such that it is Minnie’s wish to talk to them. ok #

19. 19 Opacity phenomena: a few Minnie wishes to talk to a few young psychiatrists. > Minnie’s wish is to talk to a few young psychiatrists. > There are a few young psychiatrists such that it is Minnie’s wish to talk to them. ok

20. 20 Opacity phenomena: conclusion > opacity phenomena = scope with respect to intensional verbs (such as believe, wish) > whereas bare plurals can only take scope below the intensional verb, regular indefinites can take scope below and above it

21. 21 Narrow scope phenomena: a Everyone read a book on caterpillars. > For everyone there is a book on caterpillars that is such that he/she read it. > There is a book on caterpillars that is such that everyone read it. ok

22. 22 Narrow scope phenomena:  Everyone read books on caterpillars. > For everyone there are books on caterpillars that are such that he/she read them. > There are books on caterpillars that are such that everyone read them. ok #

23. 23 Narrow scope phenomena: a few Everyone read a few books on caterpillars. > For everyone there are a few books on caterpillars that are such that he/she read them. > There are a few books on caterpillars that are such that everyone read them. ok

24. 24 Narrow scope phenomena: conclusion whereas bare plurals can only take scope below other operators, regular indefinites can take scope below and above them

25. 25 Overview Bare plurals behave differently from singular indefinite a and indefinites in general in that they can only take narrow scope.

26. 26 Differentiated scope: a A dog was everywhere. > There is a dog such that it was everywhere. > All places were such that they had a dog in them. ok #

27. 27 Differentiated scope:  Dogs were everywhere. > There are dogs that are such that they were everywhere. > All places were such that they had dogs in them. # ok

28. 28 Differentiated scope: a again A flag was hanging in front of every building. > There is a flag such that it was hanging in front of every building. > All buildings were such that they had a flag in front of them. ok

29. 29 Differentiated scope: conclusion > According to Carlson BPs can sometimes take scope below operators indefinites cannot take scope under. > This might however be due to his choice of examples. > What does seem to hold is that bare plurals can only take narrow scope.

30. 30 Anaphora: a Harriet caught a rabbit yesterday, and Ozzie caught it today. > a rabbit = it > a rabbit  it ok #

31. 31 Anaphora:  Harriet caught rabbits yesterday, and Ozzie caught them today. > rabbits = them > rabbits  them ok

32. 32 Anaphora: plural them I bought a potato because they contain vitamin C.

33. 33 Anaphora: plural them I bought a potato because they contain vitamin C. > Carlson’s anaphora argument is based on the assumption that it and them are different only in number. > This assumption turns out to be ill-guided. Them but not it seems to be able to pick up the descriptive content of the noun. > The contrast between it and them makes any argument that is based on a comparison between singular and plural anaphora flawed.

34. 34 Anaphora: conclusion > According to Carlson BPs sometimes allow for anaphora indefinites don’t allow for. > This might however be due to his choice of pronoun.

35. 35 Overview > BP is not the plural counterpart of a > BP is not even a normal indefinite > Argumentation hinges on scope facts.

36. 36 Overview > the generic and the existential reading of BPs are two sides of the same coin

37. 37 Bare plurals and kinds Strong claim “A unified analysis is not only desirable, but necessary, if we are to have a complete account of this construction.”

38. 38 Bare plurals and kinds Two sides of the same coin... Argument #1 they are in complementary distribution Children are playing in the garden. Children are intelligent. Why is this not a very strong argument?

39. 39 Bare plurals and kinds Two sides of the same coin... Argument #2 kind-referring DPs behave in the same way: This kind of human being is playing in the garden. This kind of human being is intelligent. Why is this still not a very strong argument?

40. 40 Bare plurals and kinds Strongest point Unambiguously kind-referring DPs behave scopally in the same way! > If we assume that BPs are kind-referring we get the funny scope behaviour for free!

41. 41 Bare plurals and kinds Max believes this kind of animal to have eaten his pet sponge. > No specific instantiation of this kind of animal can be intended.

42. 42 Bare plurals and kinds Everyone saw this kind of animal. > A reading according to which there is a particular instantiation of this kind of animal that everyone saw is not available.

43. 43 Overview > BPs refer to kinds and the context decides whether you get the kind or an existential reading. > Scope facts form the knock-down argument

44. 44 Overview > how to connect the sides of the coin?

45. 45 Kinds and their instantiations Carlson doesn’t give an explicit semantics for the kind and generic readings. For the existential readings he proposes that there are predicates that select kinds and existentially quantify over their instantiations (the realization operation): y  x[R(x,y)&P(x)] Baking the existential quantifier into predicates guarantees narrow scope.

46. 46 Kinds and their instantiations y  x[R(x,y)&here(x)] = to be here y-  x[R(x,y)&here(x)] = not to be here -  x[R(x,cat k )&here(x)] = cats k not to be here

47. 47 Overview > BPs refer to kinds and the context decides whether you get the kind or an existential reading. > BP is not the plural counterpart of a > BP is not even a normal indefinite > existential readings are obtained through a realization operation baked into predicates > the whole story hinges on scope facts

48. Longobardi (as treated in Dayal to appear )

49. 49 Some background > syntactician > Italian (works at Trieste) > interested in the structure of DPs (cf. Abney 1987) DP NP N’ N DP D’ DNPD’ DN’ N

50. 50 Expletive articles > In certain contexts, the definite article doesn’t seem to add anything to the semantics. > The reason it appears in these contexts seems to be tied only to syntax. Longobardi assumes this to be the case with: > proper names The John, The Mary,... (Greek champions these uses) > kind referring nouns

51. 51 Italian proper names Il mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato. the my John has finally called My Johnny finally called. *Mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato. my John has finally called My Johnny has finally called. Gianni mio ha finalmente telefonato. John my has finally called My Johnny has finally called

52. 52 Italian proper names Il mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato. the my John has finally called My Johnny finally called. *Mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato. my John has finally called My Johnny has finally called. Gianni mio ha finalmente telefonato John my has finally called My Johnny has finally called Proposal: il occupies a position that...... has to be filled... cannot be filled by mio... but can be filled by moving Gianni to it def + poss + name poss + name

53. 53 Italian proper names Il mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato. the my John has finally called My Johnny finally called. *Mio Gianni ha finalmente telefonato. my John has finally called My Johnny has finally called. Gianni mio ha finalmente telefonato John my has finally called My Johnny has finally called Proposal: il occupies a position that...... has to be filled... cannot be filled by mio... but can be filled by moving Gianni to it name + poss ! evidence for the DP hypothesis def + poss + name poss + name

54. 54 English proper names *The my Johnny ha finalmente telefonato. the my John has finally called My Johnny finally called. My Johnny ha finalmente telefonato. my John has finally called My Johnny has finally called. *Johnny my ha finalmente telefonato John my has finally called My Johnny has finally called Proposal: the occupies a position that...... hasn’t got to be filled... and therefore shouldn’t be filled... consequently the moving of Johnny to it is not allowed

55. 55 Italian vs. English proper names Proposal: il occupies a position that...... has to be filled... cannot be filled by mio... but can be filled by moving Gianni to it Proposal: the occupies a position that...... hasn’t got to be filled... and therefore shouldn’t be filled... consequently the moving of Johnny to it is not allowed ITALIANENGLISH parameter distinguishing between Italian and English type languages

56. 56 English kind referring nouns *The big dogs bark. Big dogs bark. *Dogs big bark. Proposal: the occupies a position that...... hasn’t got to be filled... and therefore shouldn’t be filled... consequently the moving of dogs to it is not allowed

57. 57 Italian kind referring nouns I grandi cani abbaiano the big dogs bark Big dogs bark. *Grandi cani abbaiano big dogs bark Big dogs bark. *Cani grandi abbaiano dogs big bark Big dogs bark. Proposal: i occupies a position that...... has to be filled... cannot be filled by grandi... cannot be filled by cani

58. 58 Italian proper names vs. kind referring nouns ITALIAN KIND REFERRING NsITALIAN PROPER NAMES Proposal: i occupies a position that...... has to be filled... cannot be filled by grandi... cannot be filled by cani Only proper names can raise to D. Proposal: il occupies a position that...... has to be filled... cannot be filled by mio... but can be filled by moving Gianni to it

59. 59 Longobardi: recap In order to refer (in argument position) NPs have to be associated with a D. The association with D can be made in syntax or at LF. This association can be made by adding an (overt or covert) D or by moving the noun to D. The latter option is only available for nouns that intrinsically refer to an individual (i.e. proper names). In Italian the association is made in syntax. In English the association is made at LF. UNIVERSAL PARAMETER SETTING

60. 60 Longobardi: a small caveat ! Ho mangiato biscotti. I_have eaten biscuits I ate biscuits. Proposal: In ‘properly governed positions’ a null determiner can be inserted into D. = everywhere except in preverbal subject position

61. Type shifting

62. 62 Type-shifting ? Types ? Types... two basic types: - individuals(type e) - truth values(type t) Hu Jintao type e president(s) type Hu Jintao is president. e+ = t TRUE!

63. 63 Type-shifting ? Types ? Types... two basic types: - individuals(type e) - truth values(type t) Hu Jintao type e smile type Hu Jintao [smile]. e+ = t TRUE!

64. 64 Type-shifting ? Types ? Types... two basic types: - individuals(type e) - truth values(type t) president(s) type smile type President(s) [smile]. + = ? OOPS...

65. 65 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... president(s) type xPresident(x)  Q  x[President(x)&Q(x)] type,t> xPresident(x)  x[President(x)] type e xPresident(x)  KIND x[President(x)] type e

66. 66 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... smile type Presidents [smile].,t>+ = t Q  x[President(x)&Q(x)] type,t>  x[President(x)] type e KIND x[President(x)] type e e+ = t

67. 67 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... Can we do whatever we want? NO! Two constraints: THOU SHALT NOT shift unless needed. THOU SHALT NOT shift covertly if Thou hast a determiner that makes the same shift overtly. = Blocking Principle

68. 68 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... smile type Presidents [smile].,t>+ = t Q  x[President(x)&Q(x)] type,t>  x[President(x)] type e KIND x[President(x)] type e e+ = t

69. 69 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... Hu Jintao type e the president type e Hu Jintao type e (is) the president type e +=?  xPresident(x)  y[y=  xPresident(x)] type Hu Jintao type e (is) the president type += t IDENT

70. 70 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... e,t>  KIND IDENT  Realization BE

71. 71 Type-shifting ? Types ? Type-shifting... Partee, B., 1987, ‘Noun phrase interpretation and type- shifting principles’, in J. Groenendijk, D. de Jongh & M. Stokhof (eds.) Studies in Discourse Representation Theory and the Theory of Generalized Quantifiers, Dordrecht: Foris, 115-143.

72. Chierchia (as treated in Dayal to appear )

73. 73 Some background > semanticist (works at Harvard) > Italian > sometimes the analysis is so beautiful that it simply has to be correct (even if the facts don’t seem to follow yet)

74. 74 Chierchia vs. Longobardi Longobardi: > Nouns always have to be associated with D to appear in argument position. > Italian common nouns need an overt D to be able to appear in argument position. > English common nouns don’t need an overt D to be able to appear in argument position. Chierchia: > Whether a noun needs to be associated with D depends on the language. > Italian common nouns are of type and cannot appear in argument position without a (covert) D. > English common nouns don’t need to be associated with D. They are of type but can freely shift to type e or,t>. [-arg; +pred] [+arg; +pred]

75. 75 Italian nouns are of type and cannot shift by themselves to type e or type,t>. English nouns are of type but can shift by themselves to type e or type,t>. THOU SHALT NOT shift unless needed. THOU SHALT NOT shift covertly if Thou hast a determiner that makes the same shift overtly. a the

76. 76 Chierchia Quiz > Italian common nouns are of type and cannot appear in argument position without a (covert) D. > English common nouns don’t need to be associated with D. They are of type but can freely shift to type e or,t>. [-arg; +pred] [+arg; +pred] Why aren’t there bare singular arguments in Italian? Why aren’t there bare singular arguments in English?

77. 77 Chierchia and narrow scope: English How does he derive the narrow-scope behaviour of the English bare plural? e,t> KIND  Realization

78. 78 Chierchia and narrow scope: Italian How does he derive the narrow-scope behaviour of the Italian bare plural? e,t> KIND  Realization

79. 79 Chierchia: beyond Italian and English Chierchia proposes the following typology: [-arg; +pred] [+arg; +pred] [-arg; -pred] [+arg; -pred] Italian English No language Chinese

80. 80 Chierchia and Chinese Extra assumption about Chinese: all nouns start life as kind-referring expressions -> predicts narrow-scope behaviour Extra trivia about Chinese: - language that doesn’t have number marking on nouns - language that doesn’t have articles

81. 81 Chierchia Quiz What are the possible English translations of xuesheng (‘student’)? a student the student students (existential) students (kind) the students Can xuesheng appear in a sentence like Hu shi xuesheng (‘Hu is student’)?

82. 82 Chierchia: recap > Makes heavy use of type-shifting. > Proposes a typology of languages constraining type- shifting options. > Assumes bare nouns cross-linguistically refer to kinds at least at some point in their derivation (and therefore only take narrow scope). > Rejects the idea that the D projection is necessary for argumenthood. => NEO-CARLSONIAN ANALYSIS

83. Dayal (as treated in Dayal to appear )

84. 84 Some background > semanticist > Hindi (works at Rutgers) > When asked why she likes to be Neo-Carlsonian she replied: “I love kinds”.

85. 85 A small problem for Chierchia #caaro taraf bacca khel rahaa thaa four ways child play PROG PAST ‘A (same) child was playing everywhere.’ > If bare nominals are always kind-referring and always take narrow-scope the above sentence should be fine...but it’s not... > Does this endanger the generalization that bare nominals always refer to kinds and that they always take narrow scope?

86. 86 A small problem for Chierchia > Does this endanger the generalization that bare nominals always refer to kinds and that they always take narrow scope? Hindi distinguishes between singular and plural kinds. Singular kinds do not allow access to their instantiations. two of these whales -> two of this type of whale *two of this whale -> two of this type of whale The only way to derive a reading for bacca is through the  type-shift. The apparent indefinite reading arises because the covert  type-shift doesn’t carry any familiarity requirement. NO!!!

87. General recap

88. 88 General recap: history Carlson Semantics | English Longobardi Syntax | English/Italian Chierchia Semantics | all languages Dayal Semantics | esp. Hindi

89. 89 General recap: assumptions about D Carlson Longobardi Chierchia | Dayal no position in the syntactic debate crosslinguistically all arguments need a D arguments don’t need a D (whether or not there’s a D is an empirical question)

90. 90 Comparison with last week THOU SHALT NOT shift covertly if Thou hast a determiner that makes the same shift overtly. Reformulation Shift freely except if you have an overt determiner that has the semantics of the shift. > This reformulation makes clear that the blocking principle is a non-atomic principle that contains a violable constraint (‘shift freely’). > One of the few frameworks that allows us to formalize the blocking principle as a non-atomic constraint is OT.

91. 91 Comparison with last week NumP NP DP a. Fdr Mark discourse referents b. Fpl Mark reference to a group For each functional projection we have a faithfulness constraint. DP NumP We add one markedness constraint c. *FunctN Don’t mark functional structure in the N-domain *FunctN >> Fdr >> FplChinese Fdr >> Fpl >> *FunctNEnglish

92. Assignment

93. Exercise 1 (submission deadline: Monday February 21st, 18:00) INTRO | Schmitt & Munn (1999) note that the following sentence in Brazilian Portuguese can only receive an interpretation according to which I met some individuals who are friends and some individuals who are relatives (the 'split' reading). It crucially cannot mean that I met individuals that are both friends and relatives (the 'joint' reading). Eu encontrei amigo e parente no aeroporto. I met friend and relative in_the airport If we assume nouns in Brazilian Portuguese are predicates and that existential shifts apply freely, this fact comes as a surprise. QUESTION | Explain why the fact that we cannot get the 'joint' reading comes as a surprise if we make the above assumptions. (half a page max.) QUESTION | What would we predict if we assume - with Dobrovie-Sorin & Pires de Oliveira - that nouns are kind denoting in Brazilian Portuguese? (half a page max.)

94. Next week...

95. scope type-shifting a syntactic interludium