| Author | Title | Year | Journal/Proceedings | Reftype | DOI/URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bary, C. and Maier, E. | The landscape of speech reporting | 2021 | Semantics and Pragmatics Vol. 14(8) |
article | DOI |
| Abstract: Languages offer various ways to report what someone said. There is now a vast but heterogeneous literature on speech report constructions scattered throughout the semantics literature. We offer a bird’s eye view of the entire landscape of reporting and propose a classification along two dimensions: at-issue vs. not-at-issue, and eventive vs. non-eventive. This bird’s eye perspective leads to genuinely new insights, for instance on the nature of quotative evidentials and reportative moods, viz., that they are both eventive, and hence semantically more like some types of direct and indirect speech than reportative evidentials and modals are. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Bary2021,
author = {Corien Bary and Emar Maier},
title = {The landscape of speech reporting},
journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics},
year = {2021},
volume = {14},
number = {8},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.14.8}
}
|
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| Biezma, M. and Rawlins, K. | Rhetorical questions: Severing questioning from asking | 2017 | Proceedings of SALT | inproceedings | DOI |
| Abstract: Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are puzzling for theoretical accounts of questions: while they have an interrogative form, they seem to provide the same information as a parallel assertion. We propose that solving this puzzle requires a deeper understanding of the dynamics of interrogative utterances, and in particular we argue for a dynamics parallel to what has recently been proposed for assertions and imperatives: uttering an interrogative is a proposal to update the context, in this case the QUD, and its acceptance leads to the final inquisitive update. We argue that RhQs are interrogatives triggering the presupposition that the context entails the answer, so if accepted as a QUD, they would be immediately answered. This, in combination with the dynamics we develop, allows us to explain both the similarities with assertions as well as the differences in their discourse function. | |||||
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Biezma2017,
author = {María Biezma and Kyle Rawlins},
title = {Rhetorical questions: Severing questioning from asking},
booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT},
year = {2017},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v27i0.4155}
}
|
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| Bledin, J. and Rawlins, K. | What ifs | 2019 | Semantics and Pragmatics Vol. 12(14), pp. 1-55 |
article | DOI |
| Abstract: We develop a dynamic account of what if questions on which they re-pose questions inside local contexts introduced by their if-clauses subject to the felicity constraint that the resulting context is inquisitive. While this analysis is directly motivated by cases where a what if questioner challenges another speaker’s attempt to answer a current question under discussion (QUD) by seeming to re-ask this question over a more restricted contextual domain, it can also explain the flexibility of what if since other uses trigger accommodation with new QUDs to ensure that the post-suppositional inquisitivity condition is met. While QUD accommodation is a complex phenomenon that isn’t specific to just what if constructions, the pragmatic flexibility of what if furnishes a nice range of examples for investigating such repair. In the latter part of the paper, we focus on practical what if questions which trigger accommodation with QUDs that subserve the real-world domain goals of the speakers. We offer a systematic working theory of this accommodation within a formal model of discourse that involves goal stacks populated with both questions and decision problems tethered together by relevance. The larger contribution of this paper is to add to the understanding of how discourse felicity and update conditions at the level of speech acts can be encoded in natural languages. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Bledin2019,
author = {Justin Bledin and Kyle Rawlins},
title = {What ifs},
journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics},
publisher = {Linguistic Society of America},
year = {2019},
volume = {12},
number = {14},
pages = {1--55},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.12.14}
}
|
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| Caponigro, I. and Davidson, K. | Ask, and tell as well: Question–Answer Clauses in American Sign Language | 2011 | Natural Language Semantics Vol. 19(4), pp. 323-371 |
article | DOI |
| Abstract: A construction is found in American Sign Language that we call a Question–Answer Clause. It is made of two parts: the first part looks like an interrogative clause conveying a question, while the second part resembles a declarative clause answering that question. The very same signer has to sign both, the entire construction is interpreted as truth-conditionally equivalent to a declarative sentence, and it can be uttered only under certain discourse conditions. These and other properties of Question–Answer Clauses are discussed, and a detailed syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic account is provided. Question–Answer Clauses are argued to be copular clauses consisting of a silent copula of identity connecting an interrogative clause in the precopular position with a declarative clause in the postcopular position. Pragmatically, they instantiate a topic/comment structure, with the first part expressing a sub-question under discussion and the second part expressing the answer to that sub-question. Broader implications of the analysis are discussed for the Question Under Discussion theory of discourse structuring, for the analysis of pseudoclefts in spoken languages, and for recent proposals about the need for answerhood operators and exhaustivity operators in the grammar and the consequences for the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Caponigro2011,
author = {Ivano Caponigro and Kathryn Davidson},
title = {Ask, and tell as well: Question–Answer Clauses in American Sign Language},
journal = {Natural Language Semantics},
year = {2011},
volume = {19},
number = {4},
pages = {323--371},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-011-9071-0}
}
|
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| Cohen, P.R. and Perrault, C.R. | Elements of a plan-based theory of speech acts | 1979 | Cognitive Science Vol. 3(3), pp. 177-212 |
article | DOI |
| Abstract: This paper explores the truism that people think about what they say. It proposes that, to satisfy their own goals, people often plan their speech acts to affect their listeners' beliefs, goals, and emotional states. Such language use can be modelled by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, thus allowing both physical and speech acts to be integrated into plans.
Methodological issues of how speech acts should be defined in a plan-based theory are illustrated by defining operators for requesting and informing. Plans containing those operators are presented and comparisons are drawn with Searle's formulation. The operators are show to be inadequate since they cannot be composed to form questions (requests to inform) and multiparty requests (requests to request). By refining the operator definitions and by identifying some of the side effects of requesting, compositional adequacy is achieved. The solution leads to a metatheoretical principle for modelling speech acts as planning operators. |
|||||
BibTeX:
@article{Cohen1979,
author = {Philip R. Cohen and C. Raymong Perrault},
title = {Elements of a plan-based theory of speech acts},
journal = {Cognitive Science},
year = {1979},
volume = {3},
number = {3},
pages = {177-212},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/S0364-0213(79)80006-3}
}
|
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| Frazier, L., Dillon, B. and Charles Clifton, J. | Together They Stand: Interpreting Not-At-Issue Content | 2018 | Language and Speech Vol. 61(2), pp. 199-226 |
article | DOI URL |
| Abstract: Potts unified the account of appositives, parentheticals, expressives, and honorifics as 'Not- At-Issue’ (NAI) content, treating them as a natural class semantically in behaving like root (unembedded) structures, typically expressing speaker commitments, and being interpreted independently of At-Issue content. We propose that NAI content expresses a complete speech act distinct from the speech act of the containing utterance. The speech act hypothesis leads us to expect the semantic properties Potts established. We present experimental confirmation of two intuitive observations made by Potts: first that speech act adverbs should be acceptable as NAI content, supporting the speech act hypothesis; and second, that when two speech acts are expressed as successive sentences, the comprehender assumes they are related by some discourse coherence relation, whereas an NAI speech act need not bear a restrictive discourse coherence relation to its containing utterance, though overall sentences containing relevant content are rated more acceptable than those that do not. The speech act hypothesis accounts for these effects, and further accounts for why judgments of syntactic complexity or evaluations of whether or not a statement is true interact with the at-issue status of the material being judged or evaluated. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Frazier2018,
author = {Lyn Frazier and Brian Dillon and Charles Clifton, Jr.},
title = {Together They Stand: Interpreting Not-At-Issue Content},
journal = {Language and Speech},
year = {2018},
volume = {61},
number = {2},
pages = {199-226},
note = {PMID: 28655288},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830917714608},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830917714608}
}
|
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| Goodhue, D. | A unified account of inquisitive and assertive rising declaratives | 2021 | Vol. 6(1)Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, pp. 951 |
inproceedings | DOI |
| Abstract: Previous work on rising declaratives has argued that some have an inquisitive interpretation similar to polar questions, and that this meaning is intonationally distinguished by a steep final rise to a high boundary tone, while others have an assertive interpretation, similar to assertions of falling declaratives, that has a shallower final rise to a lower, high boundary tone. I demonstrate that this strict form-meaning correlation does not hold because there are inquisitive rising declaratives that have a shallow final rise. I argue for a unified theory of rising declaratives with enough interpretational flexibility to explain these crosscutting patterns. | |||||
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Goodhue2021,
author = {Daniel Goodhue},
title = {A unified account of inquisitive and assertive rising declaratives},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America},
year = {2021},
volume = {6},
number = {1},
pages = {951},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v6i1.5042}
}
|
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| Green, M.S. | Illocutionary Force and Semantic Content | 2000 | Linguistics and Philosophy Vol. 23(5), pp. 435-473 |
article | URL |
| Abstract: Illocutionary force and semantic content are widely held to occupy utterly different categories in at least two ways: (1) any expression serving as an indicator of illocutionary force must be without semantic content, and (2) no such expression can embed. A refined account of the force/content distinction is offered here that (a) does the explanatory work that the standard distinction does, while, in accounting for the behavior of a range of parenthetical expressions, (b) shows neither (1) nor (2) to be compulsory. The refined account also motivates a development of the "scorekeeping model" of conversation, helps to isolate a distinction between illocutionary force and illocutionary commitment, and reveals one precise respect in which meaning is only explicable in terms of use. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Green2000,
author = {Mitchell S. Green},
title = {Illocutionary Force and Semantic Content},
journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy},
year = {2000},
volume = {23},
number = {5},
pages = {435-473},
url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/25001787}
}
|
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| Hawkins, R.X.D., Stuhlmuller, A., Degen, J. and Goodman, N.D. | Why do you ask? Good questions provoke informative answers | 2015 | CogSci | inproceedings | URL |
| Abstract: What makes a question useful? What makes an answer appropriate? In this paper, we formulate a family of increasingly sophisticated models of question-answer behavior within the Rational Speech Act framework. We compare these models based on three different pieces of evidence: first, we demonstrate how our answerer models capture a classic effect in psycholinguistics showing that an answerer’s level of informativeness varies with the inferred questioner goal, while keeping the question constant. Second, we jointly test the questioner and answerer components of our model based on empirical evidence from a question-answer reasoning game. Third, we examine a special case of this game to further distinguish among the questioner models. We find that sophisticated pragmatic reasoning is needed to account for some of the data. People can use questions to provide cues to the answerer about their interest, and can select answers that are informative about inferred interests. | |||||
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Hawkins2015,
author = {Robert X. D. Hawkins and Andreas Stuhlmuller and Judith Degen and Noah D. Goodman},
title = {Why do you ask? Good questions provoke informative answers},
booktitle = {CogSci},
year = {2015},
url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.706.6698&rep=rep1&type=pdf}
}
|
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| Malamud, S.A. and Stephenson, T. | Three ways to avoid commitments: Declarative force modifiers in the conversational scoreboard | 2015 | Journal of Semantics Vol. 32(2), pp. 275-311 |
article | DOI |
| Abstract: We discuss three English markers that modify the force of declarative utterances: reverse-polarity tags (Tom's here, isn't he?), same-polarity tags (Tom's here, is he?), and rising intonation (Tom's here?). The three are similar in that they seem to render the assertion expressed by the attached declarative tentative in some way. The differences among them are brought out especially clearly in dialogues with taste predicates (tasty, attractive) and vague scalar predicates applied to borderline cases (red for an orange-red object). These differences have consequences for the correct model of conversation, common ground, and speech acts. Our proposal involves a conversational ‘scoreboard’ that allows speakers to make strong or tentative commitments, propose changes or raise expectations about the Common Ground, propose issues to be resolved, and hazard guesses about other participants' beliefs. This model allows for distinctions among speech acts that are subtle and fine-grained enough to account for the behavior of these three markers. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Malamud2015,
author = {Malamud, Sophia A and Stephenson, Tamina},
title = {Three ways to avoid commitments: Declarative force modifiers in the conversational scoreboard},
journal = {Journal of Semantics},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
year = {2015},
volume = {32},
number = {2},
pages = {275--311},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffu002}
}
|
|||||
| AnderBois, S. | At-issueness in direct quotation the case of Mayan and quotatives | 2019 | Proceedings of SALT 29 | inproceedings | DOI |
| Abstract: In addition to lexical verbs of saying, many languages have more grammaticized means for reporting the speech of others. This paper presents the first detailed formal account of one such device: quotative morphemes in Mayan languages, with a focus on Yucatec Maya ki(j). When mentioned in previous literature, quotatives have either been regarded as a special kind of verb of saying or reportative evidential. I argue that quotatives have important differences (and some similarities) with both verbs of saying and reportatives. To capture these properties, I propose a "scoreboard" account where quotative ki(j) signals that the co-occurring quotative material demonstrates a move in an in-narrative scoreboard. | |||||
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Mayan2019,
author = {Scott AnderBois},
title = {At-issueness in direct quotation the case of Mayan and quotatives},
booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 29},
year = {2019},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v29i0.4623}
}
|
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| Perrault, C.R. | An application of default logic to speech act theory | 1990 | Intentions in Communication | incollection | |
| Abstract: One of the central issues to be addressed in basing a theory of speech acts on independently motivated accounts of propositional attitudes (belief, knowledge, intentions, etc.) and action is the specification of the effects of communicative acts. The very fact that speech acts are conventional means that specifying the effects of the utterance of, say, a declarative sentence, or the performance of an assertion, requires taking into consideration many possible deviations from the conventional use of sentences — specifically uses that are insincere, not serious, or indirect. Previous approaches to the problem of specifying speech act consequences have paid insufficient attention to the dependence of the participants’ mental state after an utterance on their mental state preceding it. We present a limited solution to the problem of belief revision within Reiter’s nonmonotonic Default Logic and show how to formulate the consequences of many uses of declarative sentences. Default rules are used to embody a simple theory of belief adoption, action observation, and the relation between the form of a sentence and the attitudes it is used to convey. | |||||
BibTeX:
@incollection{Perrault1990,
author = {C. Raymond Perrault},
title = {An application of default logic to speech act theory},
booktitle = {Intentions in Communication},
publisher = {MIT Press},
year = {1990}
}
|
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| Portner, P. | The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types [BibTeX] |
2005 | Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 14 | inproceedings | URL |
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Portner2005,
author = {Paul Portner},
title = {The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types},
booktitle = {Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 14},
publisher = {CLC Publications},
year = {2005},
url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/mJlZGQ4N/PortnerSALT04.pdf}
}
|
|||||
| Portner, P. | Imperatives and Modals | 2007 | Natural Language Semantics Vol. 15(4), pp. 351-383 |
article | URL |
| Abstract: Imperatives may be interpreted with many sub-varieties of directive force, for example as orders, invitations, or pieces of advice. I argue that the range of meanings that imperatives may convey should be identified with the variety of interpretations that are possible for root modals, including deontic, bouletic, and teleological readings. This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between imperatives and root modals in discourse which asserts that, just as declaratives contribute to the common ground and thus provide information relevant to the interpretation of epistemic modals in subsequent discourse, imperatives contribute to another component of the discourse context, the addressee’s To-do List, which affects the interpretation of subsequent root modals. More specifically, the present account of imperatives can be integrated with Kratzer’s theory of modality by requiring that the To-do List be a subset of the ordering source used in the interpretation of root modals and by providing a mechanism by which particular types of ordering source may be selected. This analysis predicts that the interpretation of imperatives and modals in discourse is constrained in surprising ways; these predictions are borne out. | |||||
BibTeX:
@article{Portner2007,
author = {Paul Portner},
title = {Imperatives and Modals},
journal = {Natural Language Semantics},
year = {2007},
volume = {15},
number = {4},
pages = {351-383},
url = {https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/linguistics/_files/pdf/4DW/Portner_4DW_2006.pdf}
}
|
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| Portner, P. | Permission and Choice [BibTeX] |
2013 | Discourse and Grammar. From Sentence Types to Lexical Categories, pp. 43-6 | incollection | DOI |
BibTeX:
@incollection{Portner2013,
author = {Paul Portner},
title = {Permission and Choice},
booktitle = {Discourse and Grammar. From Sentence Types to Lexical Categories},
publisher = {Mouton de Gruyter},
year = {2013},
pages = {43-6},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614511601.43}
}
|
|||||
| Roberts, C. | Context in Dynamic Interpretation | 2004 | Handbook of Contemporary Pragmatic Theory, pp. 197-220 | incollection | URL |
| Abstract: Here I argued for the generalized intentional structure of discourse presented in the Afterword to the 2012 version of Roberts 1996, and proposed that rhetorical relations might be thought of as particular types of strategy of inquiry. | |||||
BibTeX:
@incollection{Roberts2004,
author = {Craige Roberts},
title = {Context in Dynamic Interpretation},
booktitle = {Handbook of Contemporary Pragmatic Theory},
publisher = {Blackwell},
year = {2004},
pages = {197-220},
url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/Context_in_Dynamic_Interpretation.pdf}
}
|
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| Roberts, C. | Speech acts in discourse context | 2018 | New Work on Speech Acts, pp. 317-359 | incollection | |
| Abstract: There is evidence for the existence across all known languages of three basic clause types: declarative, interrogative, and imperative. Though this distinction in grammatical mood may be reflected in quite different ways (syntactic, morphological, lexical, etc.) in different languages, cross-linguistically we find a robust generalization: The choice of mood in a clausal utterance is reflected in a default correlation to one of the three basic types of move in a language game: making an assertion (declarative), posing a question (interrogative), or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). This is in striking contrast to the lack of regular correlation between the conventional content of constituents and speech act types in the tradition of Austin and Searle. This paper sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. In a clause, the conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to serving as a particular type of speech act, i.e. to
serving as one of the three basic types of language game moves. The type of semantics for grammatical mood that I assume is illustrated here with the imperative. As in earlier work, I take discourse to be a certain type of language game, with felicity tightly constrained by the goals and intentions of the interlocutors and, in particular, by the question under discussion. This pragmatic framework, together with the proposed semantics of mood, permits us to explain the kinds of contextual factors that lead to the attested Searlean interpretations of particular speech acts, and is compatible with a simple account of performatives in which performativity is epiphenomenal on the semantics of the predicates in question when used with a 1st person subject. |
|||||
BibTeX:
@incollection{Roberts2018,
author = {Craige Roberts},
title = {Speech acts in discourse context},
booktitle = {New Work on Speech Acts},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
year = {2018},
pages = {317-359}
}
|
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| van Rooij, R. | Comparing Questions and Answers. A bit of Language, a bit of Logic, and some bits of Information | 2009 | Formal Theories of information, pp. 161-192 | incollection | URL |
| Abstract: Notions like ‘entropy’ and ‘(expected) value of observations’ are widely used in science to determine which experiment to conduct to make a better informed choice between a set of scientific theories that are all consistent with the data. But these notions seem to be almost equally important for our use of language in daily life as they are for scientific inquiries. | |||||
BibTeX:
@incollection{Rooij2009,
author = {Robert van Rooij},
title = {Comparing Questions and Answers. A bit of Language, a bit of Logic, and some bits of Information},
booktitle = {Formal Theories of information},
publisher = {Springer},
year = {2009},
pages = {161-192},
url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.800.5150&rep=rep1&type=pdf}
}
|
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| Smirnova, A. | Evidentiality and mood: Grammatical expressions of epistemic modality in Bulgarian | 2011 | School: The Ohio State University | phdthesis | URL |
| Abstract: This dissertation is a case study of two grammatical categories, evidentiality and mood. I argue that evidentiality and mood are grammatical expressions of epistemic modality and have an epistemic modal component as part of their meanings. While the empirical foundation for this work is data from Bulgarian, my analysis has a number of empirical and theoretical consequences for the previous work on evidentiality and mood in the formal semantics literature.
Evidentiality is traditionally analyzed as a grammatical category that encodes information sources (Aikhenvald 2004). I show that the Bulgarian evidential has richer meaning: not only does it express information source, but also it has a temporal and a modal component. With respect to the information source, the Bulgarian evidential is compatible with a variety of evidential meanings, i.e. direct, inferential, and reportative, as long as the speaker has concrete perceivable evidence (as opposed to evidence based on a mental activity). With respect to epistemic commitment, the construction has different felicity conditions depending on the context: the speaker must be committed to the truth of the proposition in the scope of the evidential in a direct/inferential evidential context, but not in a reportative context. Finally, the distribution of the evidential is sensitive to the temporal relations specified in the context. In the previous literature, the Bulgarian evidential is analyzed as encoding indirect sources of information; no mention is made of its temporal meaning (Izvorski 1997, Sauerland and Schenner 2007). I propose a uniform semantic analysis of the Bulgarian evidential, which incorporates both a temporal and a modal component, and accounts for the full range of evidential meanings. The central aspect of the analysis is the assumption that the proposition in the scope of the evidential is evaluated with respect to different sets of worlds, depending on the discourse context: the belief worlds of the speaker in inferential/direct evidential contexts, and the belief worlds of the original reporter in reportative contexts. My analysis of mood explains the distribution of the subjunctive and the indicative in Bulgarian as being dependent on the epistemic commitment of the attitude holder (cf. Giannakidou 1998). Previous analyses attribute mood distribution to semantic properties of the selecting verb alone (cf. Farkas 1992, Villalta 2008). These analyses cannot be extended to Bulgarian, where the distribution of mood is sensitive not only to the semantics of matrix verbs, but also to context. This is particularly clear in cases when the same verb can select both the subjunctive and the indicative, and the choice of mood correlates with the attitude holder’s epistemic commitment. The indicative is selected iff the attitude holder is strongly committed to the truth/falsity of the proposition expressed by the complement clause. The subjunctive is selected iff the attitude holder has a weaker epistemic commitment. My formal analysis uses the tools from the analysis of modals (Kratzer 1979) and specifies how the meaning of the matrix propositional attitude verb interacts with the meaning of mood in the embedded clause. This is the first formal semantic analysis of mood in Bulgarian. |
|||||
BibTeX:
@phdthesis{Smirnova2011,
author = {Anastasia Smirnova},
title = {Evidentiality and mood: Grammatical expressions of epistemic modality in Bulgarian},
school = {The Ohio State University},
year = {2011},
url = {http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306917645}
}
|
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| Starr, W.B. | Conditionals, Meaning and Mood | 2010 | School: Rutgers University | phdthesis | URL |
| Abstract: This work explores the hypothesis that natural language is a tool for changing a language user's state of mind and, more specically, the hypothesis that a sentence's meaning is constituted by its characteristic role in fullling this purpose. This view contrasts with the dominant approach to semantics due to Frege, Tarski and others' work on articial languages: language is rst and foremost a tool for representing the world. Adapted to natural language by Davidson, Lewis, Montague, et. al. this dominant approach has crystalized as truth-conditional semantics: to know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which that sentence is true. Chapter 1 details the animating ideas of my alternative approach and shows that the representational function of language can be understood in terms of the more general function of changing representational mental states. Chapters 2-4 argue that the additional resources of this more general conception of meaning allow us to explain certain phenomena involving conditionals (e.g. if Bob danced then Leland danced) and grammatical mood (e.g. declarative, interrogative, imperative mood) that truth-conditional semantics does not. In the analysis of these specic phenomena and the articulation of the general approach on oer, it emerges that this approach combines insights and benets from both use-theoretic and truth-theoretic work on meaning. | |||||
BibTeX:
@phdthesis{Starr2010,
author = {William B. Starr},
title = {Conditionals, Meaning and Mood},
school = {Rutgers University},
year = {2010},
url = {https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/30442/pdf/1/}
}
|
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| Starr, W. | Conditionals and Questions [BibTeX] |
2011 | unpublished | URL | |
BibTeX:
@unpublished{Starr2011,
author = {William Starr},
title = {Conditionals and Questions},
year = {2011},
url = {http://williamstarr.net/research/conditionals_and_questions.pdf}
}
|
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| Westera, M. | ‘Attention, I’m violating a maxim!’ A unifying account of the final rise | 2013 | 17th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (DialDam) | inproceedings | URL |
| Abstract: Declarative sentences that end with a rising pitch in English (among other languages) have many uses. I single out several prominent uses that the literature so far has treated mostly independently. I present a compositional, unifying analysis, where the final rising pitch marks the violation of a conversational maxim, and its steepness indicates the speaker’s emotional activation. Existing theories are reproduced from these basic assumptions. I
believe it contributes to a solid theoretical foundation for future work on the semantics and pragmatics of intonation. |
|||||
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Westera2013,
author = {Matthijs Westera},
title = {‘Attention, I’m violating a maxim!’ A unifying account of the final rise},
booktitle = {17th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (DialDam)},
year = {2013},
url = {http://semdial.org/anthology/Z13-Westera_semdial_0019.pdf}
}
|
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| Woods, R. | Embedded Inverted Questions as Embedded Illocutionary Acts | 2016 | Proceedings of WCCFL 33 | inproceedings | |
| Abstract: [Taken from Intro]: Embedded inverted questions (EIQs) are a fairly well studied phenomenon in English dialects and have previously been analysed as evidence for direct CP recursion in Germanic languages. In this paper, their properties as speech reports will be further investigated and the CP recursion analysis will be updated, showing that the structure of EIQs has implications for our understanding of clausal selection and the possibility of embedded speech acts in natural language. Specifically, further evidence will be provided that not all cases of clausal complementation involve selection and evidence of embedded illocutionary force in English will be presented. The paper is structured as follows; the key data on EIQs will be presented along with new observations on their meaning and use. Secondly, an analysis of the embedded clause itself will be presented which proposes that illocutionary force independent of the matrix force is available in EIQs. Thirdly, a proposal for the linking of the EIQ and the matrix clause will be made which accounts for both the embedded characteristics of the EIQ and its incompatibility with selection by the matrix verb. It will be proposed that the embedded clause refers to an utterance in a previous discourse and is identified as the content of the true complement to the matrix verb, namely a null nominal. The paper then concludes with directions for future research. | |||||
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Woods2016,
author = {Rebecca Woods},
title = {Embedded Inverted Questions as Embedded Illocutionary Acts},
booktitle = {Proceedings of WCCFL 33},
year = {2016}
}
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| Yuan, M. and Hara, Y. | Questioning and Asserting at the Same Time: the L% Tone in A-not-A questions [BibTeX] |
2013 | Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquium | inproceedings | URL |
BibTeX:
@inproceedings{Yuan2013,
author = {Mengxi Yuan and Yurie Hara},
title = {Questioning and Asserting at the Same Time: the L% Tone in A-not-A questions},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquium},
year = {2013},
url = {https://archive.illc.uva.nl/AC/AC2013/uploaded_files/inlineitem/36_Yuan_Hara.pdf}
}
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| Zanuttini, R. and Portner, P. | Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface [BibTeX] |
2003 | Language Vol. 79(1), pp. 39-81 |
article | DOI |
BibTeX:
@article{Zanuttini2003,
author = {Raffaella Zanuttini and Paul Portner},
title = {Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface},
journal = {Language},
year = {2003},
volume = {79},
number = {1},
pages = {39-81},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2003.0105}
}
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