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Alternatives, Exclusivity and Underspecification.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Alternatives, Exclusivity and Underspecification./
Author:	Windhearn, Jennifer Rosemarie 'Mia'.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2021,
Description:	419 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-04, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International83-04A.
Subject:	Linguistics. -
Online resource:	https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28713943
ISBN:	9798460417964

Alternatives, Exclusivity and Underspecification.
Windhearn, Jennifer Rosemarie 'Mia'.

Alternatives, Exclusivity and Underspecification. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2021 - 419 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-04, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cornell University, 2021.

This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.

This dissertation serves as both a broad analysis of the structure and generation of alternative sets and a detailed proposal for the lexical semantics of exclusive operators across the world's languages. Much of the dissertation revolves around English exclusive just. Just is particularly elucidative of the analysis I propose due to extreme variability; however, there are exclusive operators with similarly interesting patterns across many languages, and the analysis applies equally to them.At the broad level, I propose that the generally accepted view that exclusive operators like only are (merely) focus-sensitive is an incomplete account of the distribution of interpretations available for exclusivity. I propose that non-canonical exclusive operators like just demonstrate that focus is only one of several mechanisms by which alternative sets can be generated, and furthermore that focus follows the same basic template as generalized alternative set generation. Lastly, I take seriously the concerns raised in Zimmermann 2017 about the failure to generate the correct truth conditions when operators like only are taken to be intensional operators. I argue that a structured proposition approach allows us to retain some of the key insights of Rooth 1992 while avoiding the pitfalls of quantification over propositions. In the process, I provide a single semantics which allows any element to be the locus of the alternatives.The semantics of exclusives that I propose is of a polymorphic type with a restriction that its first argument be a potential argument of its second. These correspond to the focus and background components of a structured proposition. It also must compose with a contextually determined scale, which will vary depending on the lexical requirements of the particular exclusive. This semantic entry allows exclusive operators like just to share a core semantics with only, capturing their similarities while also staying broad enough to account for all of the variability in uses of non-canonical exclusives.In particular, the uses of exclusives I am concerned with are grouped loosely into several categories: canonical exclusives (quantification over overt elements), quantification over causation, quantification below the event, quantification over degrees and granularity, and metalinguistic quantification over discourse and potential questions. I define several parameters by which exclusive operators may vary. These parameters include scale type (e.g., entailment vs. evaluative), adjunction site, whether there is an additional lexical type restriction, whether its first argument must be overtly expressed, and whether the quantification is truth-conditional. This allows us to define the category of exclusives that pattern like merely as those that are required to adjoin above νP, be ordered by entailment, and yield a truth-conditional quantification. Only, on the other hand, is like merely except it is not restricted by scale type. Alone, however, is type-restricted to quantify over individuals in a way that neither only nor merely is. And what makes just so interesting is that it is highly underspecified and therefore not restricted along any of the parameters that I have identified. It has polymorphic type, can occur in a variety of syntactic environments, be ordered by any scale type, 'associate' with covert elements, and yield non-truth-conditional quantifications.I derive the requirement of exclusive operators like only to operate over focus alternatives from the adjunction site parameter. I argue that focus constructions are only available at the matrix level; thus, exclusives that adjoin within the νP layer do not associate with focus. This is made very clear by the distribution of meanings of Serbian exclusives. The ordinary exclusive, samo 'only', associates with focus and does not agree, while the morphologically related agreeing form, sam-o/a cannot associate with focus. Rather, its alternatives are derived via enrichment of the logical form by existential entailments of the prejacent, quantifying over elements of the same type as the subject of its agreement. I argue that the construction by itself in English is similar: its alternatives are generated by existentially entailed eventualities, and quantification is restricted to the coreferent of its pronominal.Overall, this dissertation examines the connections between exclusive operators and a variety of linguistic phenomena, including scalarity, tense, causation, emphasis, reflexivity, coreference, syntactic structure, and morphological composition. Ultimately, I hope to present a unified account of alternatives in a way that both captures the similarity between the quantification by various particles and explains their variation.

ISBN: 9798460417964Subjects--Topical Terms:

524476
Linguistics.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Alternatives

Alternatives, Exclusivity and Underspecification.
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100 1 $a Windhearn, Jennifer Rosemarie 'Mia'. $0 (orcid)0000-0002-6478-4671 $3 3562932
245 1 0 $a Alternatives, Exclusivity and Underspecification.
260 1 $a Ann Arbor : $b ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, $c 2021
300 $a 419 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 83-04, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Rooth, Mats.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cornell University, 2021.
506 $a This item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520 $a This dissertation serves as both a broad analysis of the structure and generation of alternative sets and a detailed proposal for the lexical semantics of exclusive operators across the world's languages. Much of the dissertation revolves around English exclusive just. Just is particularly elucidative of the analysis I propose due to extreme variability; however, there are exclusive operators with similarly interesting patterns across many languages, and the analysis applies equally to them.At the broad level, I propose that the generally accepted view that exclusive operators like only are (merely) focus-sensitive is an incomplete account of the distribution of interpretations available for exclusivity. I propose that non-canonical exclusive operators like just demonstrate that focus is only one of several mechanisms by which alternative sets can be generated, and furthermore that focus follows the same basic template as generalized alternative set generation. Lastly, I take seriously the concerns raised in Zimmermann 2017 about the failure to generate the correct truth conditions when operators like only are taken to be intensional operators. I argue that a structured proposition approach allows us to retain some of the key insights of Rooth 1992 while avoiding the pitfalls of quantification over propositions. In the process, I provide a single semantics which allows any element to be the locus of the alternatives.The semantics of exclusives that I propose is of a polymorphic type with a restriction that its first argument be a potential argument of its second. These correspond to the focus and background components of a structured proposition. It also must compose with a contextually determined scale, which will vary depending on the lexical requirements of the particular exclusive. This semantic entry allows exclusive operators like just to share a core semantics with only, capturing their similarities while also staying broad enough to account for all of the variability in uses of non-canonical exclusives.In particular, the uses of exclusives I am concerned with are grouped loosely into several categories: canonical exclusives (quantification over overt elements), quantification over causation, quantification below the event, quantification over degrees and granularity, and metalinguistic quantification over discourse and potential questions. I define several parameters by which exclusive operators may vary. These parameters include scale type (e.g., entailment vs. evaluative), adjunction site, whether there is an additional lexical type restriction, whether its first argument must be overtly expressed, and whether the quantification is truth-conditional. This allows us to define the category of exclusives that pattern like merely as those that are required to adjoin above νP, be ordered by entailment, and yield a truth-conditional quantification. Only, on the other hand, is like merely except it is not restricted by scale type. Alone, however, is type-restricted to quantify over individuals in a way that neither only nor merely is. And what makes just so interesting is that it is highly underspecified and therefore not restricted along any of the parameters that I have identified. It has polymorphic type, can occur in a variety of syntactic environments, be ordered by any scale type, 'associate' with covert elements, and yield non-truth-conditional quantifications.I derive the requirement of exclusive operators like only to operate over focus alternatives from the adjunction site parameter. I argue that focus constructions are only available at the matrix level; thus, exclusives that adjoin within the νP layer do not associate with focus. This is made very clear by the distribution of meanings of Serbian exclusives. The ordinary exclusive, samo 'only', associates with focus and does not agree, while the morphologically related agreeing form, sam-o/a cannot associate with focus. Rather, its alternatives are derived via enrichment of the logical form by existential entailments of the prejacent, quantifying over elements of the same type as the subject of its agreement. I argue that the construction by itself in English is similar: its alternatives are generated by existentially entailed eventualities, and quantification is restricted to the coreferent of its pronominal.Overall, this dissertation examines the connections between exclusive operators and a variety of linguistic phenomena, including scalarity, tense, causation, emphasis, reflexivity, coreference, syntactic structure, and morphological composition. Ultimately, I hope to present a unified account of alternatives in a way that both captures the similarity between the quantification by various particles and explains their variation.
590 $a School code: 0058.
650 4 $a Linguistics. $3 524476
650 4 $a Logic. $3 529544
653 $a Alternatives
653 $a Exclusivity
653 $a Just
653 $a Pragmatics
653 $a Semantics
690 $a 0290
690 $a 0395
710 2 $a Cornell University. $b Linguistics. $3 3190488
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 83-04A.
790 $a 0058
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2021
793 $a English
856 4 0 $u https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=28713943