Volume 58, Issue 1

This study argues that many of the formalizations used in analyses employing the notion of logical scope fail to conform to natural language in important ways and lead to false predictions. This is due to the fact that they pursue the logic-driven goal of making the structure of logical arguments more transparent and mechanically calculable rather than the language-driven goal of accounting for how the linguistic signs used in an utterance and their configuration contribute to the conveying of the message being fashioned by the speaker. The focus of the study is on categories associated with the verb: tense, aspect, modality and negation. The conclusion suggests that very precise and rigid theories using logical scope relations may force the theorist to straitjacket the data so that they fit the theory, thereby obscuring rather than clarifying the nature of linguistic categories and their interactions. Informal analyses that hew closer to natural language’s semantic reality can provide greater understanding of phenomena such as the purported non-negatability of must . Seeing this English modal’s meaning as defined in opposition to real existence leads to the realization that it does not interact with negation the same way as the reality of the existence of the property of being necessary does.

This paper describes the variation in information structure of Estonian - des , - mata and - maks constructions, and analyzes the factors influencing this variation. The paper describes information structure via the categories of information status and information role. Information status, which refers to the general pragmatic status of a linguistic unit, has two possible values: an information unit or an element of an information unit. Information role refers to the pragmatic status of an element in the information structure of a larger information unit. Information role has five possible values: focus, background of the comment, topic, frame or prominent element. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, this article gives an account of the variation in the information status and information role of Estonian converb constructions. In addition, this paper discusses the way in which the relevant explanatory variables relate to the information status and role of converb constructions. This analysis gives an overview of how the information status of converb constructions relates to the presence of punctuation, the position of the converb construction relative to the main clause, the number of words in the converb construction, the semantic function of the converb construction, the position of the converb within the construction, the morphological form of the converb, and the number of modifiers of the converb. This analysis also discusses how the information role of converb constructions relates to the position and semantic function of the construction and the presence of a lexicogrammatical prominence marker.

In this paper, I examine the Literary Chinese reflexive zì , which exhibits a crosslinguistically uncommon pattern: it performs both anaphoric and emphatic uses in adverbial position. I show that it has several uses: signalling coreference between the subject and the object, the object’s possessor or the topic or focus of a complement clause, emphasising that the subject’s identity, and indicating that the event affected the subject itself or had no external cause. I argue against categorically dividing these uses into anaphoric and emphatic uses. I propose four properties to unify the various uses: the referent of zì is centrally relevant to the event denoted by the predicate, coreferential with the subject, unexpected in its role in the event, and often contrasts with an alternative referent that may play same role. I compare my account to properties of reflexives in other languages, and argue that zì only partially supports Levinson’s (Levinson, Stephen C. 1991. Pragmatic reduction of the binding conditions revisited. Journal of Linguistics 27(1). 107–161) theory of the development of anaphoric reflexives from emphatics.

Inference is usually defined as a speaker’s personal but indirect evidence that is based on something that the speaker can directly witness (such as the result of an event), while assumption is based on something such as the speaker’s general knowledge of the world. This paper is concerned with inference and assumption in light of the semantics of the Finnish inferential and assumptive adverbs näköjään (inference) and varmaan (assumption). These are examined by administering a questionnaire study. The discussed scenarios differ according to three factors: the presence or lack of visual or sensory evidence, the temporal relations between the evidence and the claim that is made, and the strength of the evidence. The results of the study clearly establish that inference and assumption are separate notions (coded by different adverbs) and that the (non-) observability of the evidence noted above explains only a part of the attested cases; in general, the use of the adverbs is determined by how reliable the speaker considers the evidence to be. As a consequence, this paper proposes new definitions based on the speakers’ selection of the appropriate inferential/assumptive adverb based on how strongly they are willing to vouch for the truth value of their statement.

This paper explores clauses of substitution (e.g. instead of relaxing on the beach, he went to a concert ) in a sample of forty-six languages. It is shown that clauses of substitution marked with monofunctional conjunctions or monofunctional converbs may not occur with standard negative markers. Clauses of substitution appearing with polyfunctional conjunctions or polyfunctional converbs may occur with obligatory standard negative markers. In these cases, negation shows a negative import as an effect of compositional interpretation. Interestingly, there are languages in which clauses of substitution marked with monofunctional clause-linking devices may occur with optional negative markers. In this scenario, the presence or absence of the negative marker does not change the adverbial relation holding between clauses. Instead, it seems to have an expressive- evaluative layer of semantic interpretation. When the negative marker is present in the clause of substitution, it indicates that the situation was not surprising. When the negative marker is absent, the situation must be understood as surprising.

The paper contributes to the typology of encoding motion events by highlighting the role of the verbal root meaning in lexicalization of motion. We focus on lexical semantics of the verbs of falling, which we study on a sample of 42 languages using the frame-based approach to lexical typology. We show that, along with downward motion, the verbs of falling regularly denote adjacent situations; and vice versa, the idea of downward motion is systematically conveyed by verbs from adjacent semantic fields. These findings challenge the application of the classical parameters of motion events (e.g. Path) to any given motion event description and offer new insights into the understanding of lexicalization patterns in general.