Abstract
The proper semantic treatment of the complements of Responsive Predicates (ResPs),those predicates which may embed either declarative or interrogative clauses, is a longstandingpuzzle, given standard assumptions about complement selection. In order to avoidpositing systematic polysemy for ResPs, typical treatments of ResP complements treat theirarguments either as uniformly declarative-like (propositional) or interrogative-like (question).I shed new light on this question with novel data from Estonian, in which there are verbsthink-like meanings with declarative complements and wonder-like meanings with interrogativecomplements. I argue that these verbs’ meaning is fundamentally incompatible with aproposition-taking semantics for ResPs, and therefore a question-taking semantics is to be preferred.Keywords: responsive predicates, embedded clauses, interrogatives, contemplation, Estonian.
Highlights
It is well-established that clausal-selecting predicates differ in the types of complements they permit
The treatment of responsive predicates (ResPs) should be empirically motivated: can we find ResPs whose meaning is fundamentally incompatible with one type of complement or another? In this paper, I will argue that the answer to this question is yes–and that the question-embedding semantics of ResPs is preferable–based on novel data from the Estonian verb motlema ‘think, consider’
I have argued for an analysis of the superficially responsive Estonian verb motlema in which its surprising interpretative sensitivity to the type of its complement follows straightforwardly from a sufficiently bleached semantics and general pragmatic principles
Summary
It is well-established that clausal-selecting predicates differ in the types of complements they permit. Rogative predicates (terminology after Lahiri 2002) like wonder and ask only permit interrogative complements, anti-rogative predicates like think and believe only permit declarative complements, and responsive predicates (ResPs) like know and say permit either type of complement. B. Prudence wonders/asks {*that/why} wombats are herbivores. C. Prudence knows/says {that/why} wombats are herbivores. Clausal arguments are argued in large part to be s(emantically)-selected (Grimshaw, 1979; Pesetsky, 1982, 1991)–that is, a clause-taking predicate lexically imposes a requirement that its complement be of a particular semantic type. Tom Roberts instance, in Estonian, just as in English, there are clausal-embedding verbs of all three selectional categories:. How can we reconcile our assumptions about selection with the existence of responsive verbs like know?
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