Studies in countability have uncovered a range of ontological entities which permit<br> cou... more Studies in countability have uncovered a range of ontological entities which permit<br> counting, including natural concrete individuals, discrete events, and taxonomic<br> subkinds. Identifying the reasons why nominal referents may not be counted has<br> been less successful, however, and remains controversial. This paper examines<br> nouns that are "strongly non-countable", those nouns for which combination with<br> the plural marker, quantifiers, and nearly all other forms of determination is a<br> vanishingly rare event. This paper develops a data set of nearly 500 such nouns,<br> adducing their strongly non-countable status from usage over a 350 million word<br> corpus (Davies 2009). Through further internet searches, we attest rare, but<br> possible, patterns of coercion available to these nouns. We then develop a classification<br> of the different notional categories that these nouns belong to. Finally, we...
Canonical subjects of eventive predicates are agentive and animate—so goes one of the over-archin... more Canonical subjects of eventive predicates are agentive and animate—so goes one of the over-arching, and idealized, generalizations of argument realization1. As robust as this generalization is, caveats are always made (e.g. Comrie 1989:107,128), in part due to a set of recalcitrant counter-examples, known as “instrumental subjects”, which violate this generalization on both counts. A paradigm case of the phenom-enon is shown in (1): the entity which appears as an instrument in (1a) also appears as a subject in (1b), although it is neither agentive nor animate. (1) a. Marvin hit the horse with a stick. b. The stick hit the horse. (from Schlesinger 1989) Inasmuch as theories of argument realization base themselves on the generaliza-tion tout court that agents are subjects, “instrumental subjects ” straightaway pose difficulties. I will demonstrate that a more articulated and systematic approach to argument structure dissolves the difficulties posed by “instrumental subjects ” and thei...
and Meaning in Use: Traditional Views on the Lexicon Traditionally, the lexicon is the list of wo... more and Meaning in Use: Traditional Views on the Lexicon Traditionally, the lexicon is the list of words of a language or communication system. From a biological perspective, the lexica of human languages are special with respect to animal communication systems because they can be freely extended, both by the creation of new (lexical) forms and by the extension of the meaning of these words. Notwithstanding this extensibility, the construction of dictionaries as xed lists of words with their meanings pays o for the purposes of language education, reliable communication and translation. Computational models of language largely share this view, as it seems initially reasonable to think that such a lexicon could be part of what characterizes the human ability to code thoughts into linguistic expressions and to recover thoughts from such expressions. What is needed for conventional dictionaries-in the tradition started by such eminent scholars as Samuel Johnson and Jacob Grimm-is precision with respect to the characterization of the word senses described. Such a task would be * We wish to express our thanks to audiences at Szklarska Poreba, the Workshop Bridging Formal and Conceptual Semantics, and Formal Semantics Meets Cognitive Semantics as well as to Katrin Erk, to Louise McNally and, especially, to an anonymous reviewer of these proceedings for many useful comments, more, in fact, than we could integrate into this preliminary report. In addition, Lotte Hogeweg and Sander Lestrade would like to thank the the Netherlands Organization for Scienti c Research (NWO) for their nancial support. All errors are our own. Authors after the rst author are listed in alphabetical order. Kata Balogh and Wiebke Petersen (eds.). 2017. Bridging Formal and Conceptual Semantics. Selected papers of BRIDGE-14. Düsseldorf: dup.
Theories of countability face the task of explaining how various nouns’ different participation i... more Theories of countability face the task of explaining how various nouns’ different participation in grammatical number constructions corresponds to meaning contrasts among those nouns.12 What, if anything, in a noun’s meaning impinges on its ability to appear in different morphosyntactic contexts related to counting and/or measuring? Or in the other direction, how do morphosyntactic contexts impinge on the possible interpretations of a noun? An explanation of countability must show how and why countability distinctions arise, from morphosyntax or lexical meaning or from a combination thereof, and be predictive of grammatical number systems both generally and in particular languages. Different proposals have staked out different positions along the spectrum of possible ways morphosyntax, lexical meaning and countability are related—from arguing that lexical meaning simply does not influence countability patterns (see Borer 2005 i.a.) to arguing that lexical meaning fully determines co...
Nouns and Countability Background: The Mass-Count Distinction What does it mean for a noun to be ... more Nouns and Countability Background: The Mass-Count Distinction What does it mean for a noun to be morphosyntactically countable or uncountable? Countable nouns (dog, chair): plural marking (dogs, chairs) modification by cardinal quantifiers (two dogs/chairs) modification by determiners implicating plurality (several dogs, several chairs) Uncountable nouns (water, sand) do not permit plural marking (*waters, *sands) nor cardinal quantifiers or those implicating plurality (*two waters, *several sands) modifiable by much or a lot of (much water, a lot of water)
This chapter examines the inverse number system in Dagaare (Gur; Niger–Congo). Inverse number sys... more This chapter examines the inverse number system in Dagaare (Gur; Niger–Congo). Inverse number systems possess a number morpheme which for some nouns encodes the plural interpretation while for others it encodes the singular interpretation. This chapter argues that a principled lexical semantic classification underlies the inverse number strategy in Dagaare, guiding whether for a particular noun the inverse morpheme codes the singular or the plural interpretation. The chapter further explores the functional grounding of inverse number, in terms of frequency and individuation, and presents a formal semantic account of the inverse number system.
Formal semantic treatments of nominal reference have focused on natural kind nouns (Carlson 1980,... more Formal semantic treatments of nominal reference have focused on natural kind nouns (Carlson 1980, Krifka et al. 1995), yet as has been widely recognized by anthropologists, cognitive scientists, philosophers, and others, artifacts (cup, furniture, chair) and natural kinds (dog, water, flower) differ critically in nature. We argue that these differences have important consequences for how artifact nouns establish reference, as well as for other fundamental nominal properties of central interest to the formal semantic enterprise, such as countability. Our analysis also sheds light on a key puzzle in the countability literature: why are artifact nouns such as furniture or mail, which seem to have individual entities in their denotation (Barner & Snedeker 2005), non-countable at both the objectand kind-level? In this paper we develop semantic representations for artifact nouns intended to capture their unique (semantic) properties. The starting point for our analysis is the proposal tha...
Despite the vast count-mass literature, determining why an abstract noun is countable (arrival) o... more Despite the vast count-mass literature, determining why an abstract noun is countable (arrival) or uncountable (happiness) remains largely unexplored territory. This paper examines several proposals which attempt to derive the countability of deverbal nouns from some aspect of the derivational source, including the well-known hypothesis by Mourelatos (1978) relating countability to aktionsart: nouns derived from states/activities are uncountable, while those derived from accomplishments/achievements are countable. Broad-scale corpus work shows that such hypotheses are not borne out. A second study of abstract nouns from four different semantic domains (bodily states and mental states (sleep), mental properties (intelligence), behavioral properties (kindness) and psych-nouns (irritation, fear)) demonstrates that the noun’s interpretation in a given context determines its countability, in turn influenced by a complex set of factors including lexicalization patterns, ontological contra...
Comunicacio presentada al 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, celebrat del 27 al 29... more Comunicacio presentada al 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, celebrat del 27 al 29 de marc del 2015 a Burnaby, Canada.
Semantic theories of number currently debate whether the plural is weak (referring to both collec... more Semantic theories of number currently debate whether the plural is weak (referring to both collections and individuals) or strong (referring to collections but not individuals). The former view holds that the plural is ‘unmarked’ as it is less specific; for the latter view, the singular is simpler and therefore ‘unmarked’. This paper examines the inverse number marking system of Dagaare (Gur; Niger-Congo), which proves problematic for both sides of the debate. The data demonstrate that the cross-linguistic facts are more complicated than if only the singular or plural were unmarked, instead markedness is conditioned upon a nominal’s level of individuation. Applying the logic of both strong and weak plural analyses shows that the strong plural analysis has better empirical traction in such systems.
The average speaker of English would most likely agree with the grammarian’s description that “th... more The average speaker of English would most likely agree with the grammarian’s description that “the English number system constitutes a two-tied contrast: SINGULAR, which denotes ‘one’, and PLURAL, which denotes ‘more than one”’ (Quirk et al. 1985: 297). Yet, recent work in the semantic literature has argued that this is precisely not the interpretation one should assign to the plural. Indeed, a theory where the plural designates more than one faces severe difficulties in cases such as those shown in (1)-(3), where the plural noun is compatible with an interpretation including just a single entity.
The typological literature has demonstrated that parameters such as agency and affectedness influ... more The typological literature has demonstrated that parameters such as agency and affectedness influence the realization of case-marking; yet, explicitly connecting individual parameters with the semantics of case-marking patterns has largely proven elusive. Here a feature-based representation of agency properties is proposed, loosely based on Dowty (1991), but reformulated in terms of privative opposition and hierarchically organized via a lattice. This approach generates a structure which can account for individual case systems as well as deliver predictions about typological generalizations. As such, this system complements the work on the semantic maps of case markers, while building upon insights accrued from work in formal and lexical semantics. For instance, one of the aims of this lattice structure is to illuminate the correspondence between the multi-functionality of a given case marker with the semantic similarity among its multiple functions.
Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Methods for Endangered Languages, 2019
We present two pieces of interlocking technology in development to facilitate community-based, co... more We present two pieces of interlocking technology in development to facilitate community-based, collaborative language description and documentation: (i) a mobile app where speakers submit text, voice recordings and/or videos, and (ii) a community language portal that organizes submitted data and provides question/answer boards whereby community members can evaluate/supplement submissions.
This book presents an extensive dictionary of the Dagaare language (Niger-Congo; Gur (Mabia)), fo... more This book presents an extensive dictionary of the Dagaare language (Niger-Congo; Gur (Mabia)), focussing on the dialect of Central Dagaare, spoken in the Upper West region of Ghana. The dictionary provides comprehensive definitions, example sentences and the English translations, phonetic forms, inflected forms, etymological notes as well as information dialectal variation. This work is intended as a resource for linguists, but also as a resource for Dagaare speakers. Also included is a grammatical sketch of Dagaare contributed by Prof. Adams Bodomo.
The typological literature has demonstrated that parameters such as agency, affectedness, and obj... more The typological literature has demonstrated that parameters such as agency, affectedness, and object individuation affect the realization of case-marking. The proposed analysis captures the specific contribution of such parameters, resulting in a model capable of explaining case alternations. A feature-based representation of agency properties is proposed, loosely based on Dowty’s proto-role theory, but reformulated in terms of privative opposition and hierarchically organized via a lattice. Theoretical gains include wider empirical reach and greater simplicity, while practical results include a detailed analysis of the genitive/accusative alternation in Russian occurring with certain scope-ambiguous verbs, e.g. ‘seek’. Modulation of parameters such as agency, affectedness and object individuation are known to affect the realization of case-marking (Hopper and Thompson 1980). Yet, explicitly connecting individual parameters with the semantics of case alternations has largely proven ...
This paper employs empirical methods to examine verbs such as seem, for which the traditional rai... more This paper employs empirical methods to examine verbs such as seem, for which the traditional raising to subject analysis relates pairs of sentences which differ by taking an infinitival or sentential complement. A corpus-driven investigation of the verbs seem and appear demonstrates that information structure and evidentiality both play a determinate role in the choice between infinitival or sentential complementation. The second half of the paper builds upon the corpus results and examines the implications for the standard claims concerning these constructions. First, pairs of sentences related by the subject-to-subject raising analysis of verbs are often viewed as equivalent. New evidence from indefinite generic subjects shows that whether an indefinite generic subject occurs in the infinitival or sentential complement construction leads to truth-conditional differences. Further implications are explored for the claim that subjects of the infinitival variant may take narrow-scope...
The nature of -ing nominals has been widely debated since the early days of generative grammar (e... more The nature of -ing nominals has been widely debated since the early days of generative grammar (e.g. Lees 1960, Chomsky 1970), and at least since Vendler (1967), -ing forms also have played a central role in debates over natural language ontology for abstract objects. This paper attempts to simplify the ontology and account for the uses and interpretations a wide range of -ing forms using only a distinction between event types and event tokens. A core insight will be that the different constructions reflect different paths by which the -ing form may come to have type or token reference. A central contrast present among these different paths involves whether the event types/tokens are individuated through nominal morphology or through temporal anchoring.
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Papers by Scott Grimm