Semantics Group (Tokyo/Hybrid) 2024/7/5(Fri.)

[jrta...@gmail.com]

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意味論研究会の会合をお知らせします．対面の場所・ズームのアクセス情報は下記の通りです。どなたでも参加出来ますので，多くの方の参加をお待ちしています．

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Date: July 5
Time: 5:00 pm
Place: Keio University, Mita campus, South Annex building, 7th floor conference room
https://www.keio.ac.jp/en/maps/mita.html
Online option: https://keio-univ.zoom.us/j/82972175560?pwd=YlRuaGt0NUFWWmI1ajhrNm1vQ3ZVZz09

Speakers 1/2: Junko Shimoyama and Bernhard Schwarz
Title 1/2: Decoupling quantities from entities in quantity DPs Speaker: Bernhard Schwarz, McGill University
presenting joint work with Luis Alonso-Ovalle, McGill University

Abstract 1/2: Quantity DPs like “the number of cooks that you hired” contain a quantity noun (e.g., “number”) and an entity noun (e.g., “cooks”). Surprisingly, such DPs cannot only saturate quantity predicates like “be seven” (as in “[The number of cooks that you hired] is seven), but also predicates of ordinary entities like “hire” (as in “I hired [the number of cooks that you hired]”). Why? We will consider two answers.

• Rich quantities: Quantity DPs uniformly denote quantities, but quantities are not primitive objects. They are set theoretic constructs built from entities, which entity predicates can retrieve (Scontras 2017).
• Ambiguity: Quantity DPs permit two structures, headed either by the quantity noun orby the entity noun (cf.  Selkirk 1977, Rothstein 2009). On this view, quantities can be considered primitive objects.

We raise a challenge for the sort of coupling of quantities with entities posited under the rich quantities approach. We observe that this coupling leads to a dilemma. Given that rich quantities can be construed as either sets or properties of ordinary entities, the dilemma is jointly caused by two types of data: quantity DPs without modifiers (e.g., “the number of planets”) call for a set construal, while quantity DPs with relativization from an intensional context (e.g., “the number of cooks that you want to hire”) require a property construal. The puzzle disappears as soon as quantities are decoupled from entities, as they can be under the ambiguity view.

Title 2/2: Anaphoric propositional expressions: nominalized clauses and proforms

Speaker 2/2: Junko Shimoyama, joint work with Keir Moulton (University of Toronto)

Abstract 2/2: Nominalized clauses can serve as the complement in belief reports in Japanese and in Korean (Shim and Ihsane 2015). We will start by reporting the findings in Bogal-Allbritten and Moulton (2018) and Moulton, Bogal-Allbritten & Shimoyama (2020), that such complements are ‘anaphoric’ to a salient proposition given in the discourse, but anaphoric to only a subset of possible propositional antecedents. We are currently looking at propositional proforms (that, it, so, and analogous Japanese expressions) to see if they exhibit similar restrictions as the nominalized clauses in Japanese and Korean. Initial exploration suggests that they do in some cases, but data are subtle and there are different appraisals of some of the facts (e.g., Krifka 2013, Snider 2017).