Indefinite Expressions Research Articles

A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

In this paper we present an original approach to analyze the compositionality of indefinite expressions in Romance by investigating the relevance of their syntactic distribution in relation to their meaning. This approach has the advantage of allowing us to explore the question of how syntactic structure can determine the meaning of different forms of indefiniteness. To that end, we postulate a common derivation for bare plurals, bare mass anddephrases, whereby an abstract operatordeis adjoined to definite determiners and shifts entities into property-type expressions. Quantificational specificity is proposed to be derived from a syntactic structure in which weak quantifiers select for indefinitede-phrases, no matter whetherdeis overt at Spell-Out or not; these quantifiers turn properties into generalized quantifiers. The anti-specificity meaning of some indefinites is derived by adjoining in the syntactic structure an abstract operatoralgthat encodes the speaker’s epistemic state of ignorance to a quantifier encoded for specificity, and it turns a generalized quantifier into a modified generalized quantifier. The paper also brings some general predictions on how indefiniteness is expressed in Romance, as it provides extensive support from five Romance languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian and Spanish.

Not-negation revisited: variation betweenaandanyin verb complements in contemporary spoken American English

Innot-negated English sentences with indefinite expressions following the verb, there is variation between the indefinite article andanyas determiners of nouns. The standard view is that singular count nouns take the indefinite article and singular non-count and plural nouns takeany.However, it is possible to encounter examples likeit isn'tany threat,there isn'tany lockorI don't haveany problem.The article studies variation between the indefinite article andanyas post-verbal determiners of singular nouns in 21,084not-negated sentences in the spoken component ofThe Corpus of Contemporary American English, COCA SPOK. The indefinite article is dominant with 90 per cent of the tokens. Variation is extremely rare in sentences with copularbeand much more frequent in sentences with existentialbeandhave. Among the reasons for variation between verb types is the use ofdo-support withhave(but not withbe). Expressions such ashave a job/car/homeorthere's not a/anwith uncontractednotmay also prevent the use ofany.Variation occurs mostly with abstract nouns such asproblem,choice,way,place,reason. This finding is surprising as abstract nouns have rarely been discussed in the literature on varying countability of nouns.

Presupposing indefinite descriptions☆

The IMPAQTS corpus of Italian political speeches annotated per implicit contents contains recurrent examples of NPs introduced by indefinite articles which are characterized by anaphoric specific reference:(Questa legge) hanno tentato di dichiararla anticostituzionale per non applicarlaa una persona che si ritiene al di sopra della giustizia.(This law) they tried to declare it unconstitutional so as not to apply it toa person who thinks to be above justice.Such examples must be interpreted as anaphorically referring to a specific, identifiable referent, recoverable in the co-text or in the universe of discourse. Consequently, they activate a presupposition of existence for the mentioned entity, thus revealing that indefinite expressions can trigger existential presupposition in a similar way to definite descriptions. We analyze the formal characteristics of such “presuppositional indefinite descriptions”, which show a recurrent syntactic and semantic structure. As for their functions, we show that they allow a different distribution of the speaker's responsibility on the contents of the utterance, as compared to definite descriptions. This is particularly relevant for the syntactic expansions to the indefinite NPs, whose contents are typically derogatory and disputable, which – in persuasive discourse – makes it beneficial for them to be conveyed in an implicit way.

Cumbersome paths to indefiniteness. Evidence from an Old Occitan customary

The central problem of this paper is the evolution of common nouns assumed to have turned into indefinite pronouns. The linguistic data have been retrieved from the Costuma d’Agen, a 13th-century Occitan Customary. The choice of this text is warranted by multiple relations obtaining between the architecture of legal codices and the presence of indefinite expressions. In this text, the contexts in which re (< Lat. acc. rem), ‘anything’ or ‘nothing’ occurs have been identified. This word is shown to be pervasive in Negative Concord (NC; under the scope of no(n), the expression of clausal negation), thereby meeting the requirements imposed upon negative polarity items (NPIs). Outside NC, re appears in conditional protases and temporal clauses introduced by ‘before’. Irrespective of the context in which it appears, Old Occitan re turns out to be fairly advanced on the grammaticalization scale: unlike its etymon, it no longer inflects for number, it does not take determiners and fails to function as a subject in the Costuma d’Agen. Comparative evidence from Gascon 13th century texts proves that, although the descendants of rem of that period occur in the same structural environments (all of them are, by then, free-choice items, FCIs), they do not evolve at the same pace as their Occitan cognate. In other words, even in neighboring linguistic zones, these expressions differ with respect to the degree of persistence of syntactic properties inherent to Latin common nouns. Finally, re is matched against other FCIs, such as hom or home ‘anybody’ or ‘nobody’ and autrui ‘someone else’ or ‘someone else’s’. Compared to re, the medieval developments of these items are far more diversified and retain more original features of their etymons. The difference is traced back to the greater conceptual salience of the animate domain.

Referential adjustment during discourse production in Alzheimer’s disease

ABSTRACT Several studies have shown that people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) tend to use more pronouns than healthy aged adults when referring to entities during discourse. This referential behavior has been associated with the decrease of cognitive abilities, such as lexical retrieval difficulties or reduced abilities in working memory. However, the influence of certain important discourse factors on the referential choices made by people with AD has yet to be established. This study examines referential choices made at three discourse stages during narrative discourse (the introduction of a referent, the maintaining of the referent in focus, and the shift from one referent in focus to another). These referential choices are examined in increasingly complex referential contexts. In addition, this study investigates the relationships between referential choices and various cognitive abilities. To do so, the narrative discourses of 21 people with AD and 21 healthy adults were elicited using a newly developed storytelling in sequence task. The analyses focused on the production of three major referential expressions (indefinite expressions, definite expressions and pronouns) which are expected to vary according to discourse stage and the referential complexity of the stories. The results show that AD participants produce significantly fewer of the referential expressions expected at the introduction and shift stages than healthy aged adults produce. Nevertheless, the variation in the categories of referential expressions produced by the AD participants between the discourse stages is similar to that produced by the healthy aged adults, suggesting a preserved sensitivity to the factors manipulated in the task (i.e., discourse stages and referential complexity). This study also highlights the fact that different cognitive competences, especially executive abilities, are greatly involved in referential choices. The results add further evidence that referential choices rely on a variety of cognitive skills, depending on the discourse context in which they are made.

Indefinite expressions and accessibility hierarchy to core argument functionsin a sample of Austronesian languages(and beyond)

Abstract In many languages, indefinite expressions are known to have restricted access to core argument functions. This article focuses on the accessibility hierarchy of indefinite expressions to subject and object functions in a sample of Austronesian languages. Aiming at some comparative analysis, some cross-linguistic perspectives on the differential encoding of ± definite core arguments and other types of restrictions are discussed. The questions addressed are: (i) What type of indefinite nouns have core argument function? (ii) If barred from core argument function, how are indefinite arguments circumvented? (iii) Does existence or lack of indefinite articles correlate with access to core argument function, and in what way? In Austronesian languages, one finding is that languages with indefinite articles display fewer restrictions on the access of indefinite NPs to core argument function. Another finding is that differences of definiteness, individuation and specificity of arguments tend to be expressed by distinct domains: the noun phrase in languages with indefinite articles, the verb phrase in languages without indefinite articles (via valency, voice alternations, alignment changes), with an intermediate situation in some Micronesian languages.

Epistemic numbers

Epistemic numbers are syntactically complex numbers formed by some combination of number and (non-numerical) indefinite expressions that convey uncertainty, vagueness or ignorance. I examine these constructions in a number of languages and provide an analysis that capitalizes on independently motivated properties of their two sub-components: epistemic indefinites and complex numerals. I argue that variability in these two components explain the cross-linguistics variability in the nature and interpretation of epistemic numbers across languages.

Knowledge likely held by others affects speakers’ choices of referential expressions at different stages of discourse

ABSTRACTEffective communication requires adjusting one’s discourse to be understood by the addressee. While some suggest that choices of referring expressions are dependent on the addressee’s accessibility to the referent, there is also evidence for an egocentric bias in speech production. This study relied on two new experimental tasks designed to assess whether speakers adapt their choices of referential expressions when introducing movie characters that are either likely known or likely unknown by their addressee, and when maintaining or reintroducing these characters at a later point in the discourse. Results revealed an adjustment to the addressee in the use of character’s names (increased for likely known characters) and definite expressions (increased for likely unknown characters) observed at all the discourse stages. Use of indefinite expressions and names was affected by the participant’s own knowledge specifically when introducing the characters. These results indicate that speakers take their addressee’s likely knowledge into account at multiple discourse stages.

Caseless direct objects in Turkish revisited

It has been claimed and widely assumed that caseless direct objects in Turkish exhibit a sort of syntactic incorporation, and only their cased counterparts are true syntactic arguments (Kornfilt 1997; Knecht 1986; Nilsson 1986; Öztürk 2005 among others). Cased and caseless objects are thus widely taken as derivationally related, crystallized in Kelepir's (2001) proposal that objects pick up overt accusative as they move out of the VP. In this paper, I would like to revisit both the empirical evidence and the interpretation leading to these claims and propose revisions.
 
 I first show that not all caseless objects are the same. Mostly drawing on Aydemir (2004), I argue that bare caseless objects and those with indefinite expressions have differences that would be very unusual if they were both incorporated. However, adopting Öztürk (2005) and against Aydemir (2004), neither of the cases can be analyzed as head incorporation.
 
 I then turn to the cased vs. caseless distinction and argue that cased and caseless objects are not that different after all. Based on data with strictly controlled information structure, I arrive at a different generalization than most of the earlier reports and claim that caseless objects are morphosyntactically as moveable as their cased counterparts.
 
 Hence, I propose to replace the notion of incorporation in the literature of Turkish syntax with the notion of weak case (de Hoop 1992) and conclude by a discussion of the domain of syntactic analysis in this primarily semantic phenomenon.

The Opinions of Research Assistants in Education Faculties Regarding their Working Lives

This research was conducted to investigate the impact of indefinite expressions in the legal job definition of research assistants on their workload. The research group was limited to 286 research assistants from education faculties in 4 state universities in Ankara. The researcher developed and conducted the survey “Specifying the opinions of research assistants regarding their work” for that research group. This study is only composed of the responses to the following two questions: (1) If you think that you engage in plodding, please specify these Instances (open-ended question); and (2) How do you assess your process of research assistantship? (Multiple choice question) Responses to the open-ended question were organised under certain codes. Both the codes and the responses to the multiple choice question were evaluated using a frequency analysis. All of the results are presented below using the samples taken from the responses, in frequency and percentage tables. The findings are interpreted.

N-words and sentential negation: Evidence from polarity particles and VP ellipsis

A prominent treatment of n -words such as nobody and never is as indefinite expressions occurring in the scope of a covert sentential negation operator. This paper presents three experiments using two novel strategies based on polarity particles and VP ellipsis to test the predictions of this treatment of n -words. The first experiment tests a particular prediction of recent accounts of polarity particles with respect to agreeing responses to negative assertions. The other two extend the inquiry to cases involving n -words. http://dx.doi.org/10.3765/sp.6.7 BibTeX info

How to give someone Horns

This paper discusses ancient versions of paradoxes today classified as paradoxes of presupposition and how their ancient solutions compare with contemporary ones. Sections 1–4 air ancient evidence for the Fallacy of Complex Question and suggested solutions, introduce the Horn Paradox, consider its authorship and contemporary solutions. Section 5 reconstructs the Stoic solution, suggesting the Stoics produced a Russellian-type solution based on a hidden scope ambiguity of negation. The difference to Russell’s explanation of definite descriptions is that in the Horn Paradox the Stoics uncovered a hidden conjunction rather than existential sentence. Sections 6 and 7 investigate hidden ambiguities in “to have” and “to lose” and ambiguities of quantification based on substitution of indefinite plural expressions for indefinite or anaphoric pronouns, and Stoic awareness of these. Section 8 considers metaphorical readings and allusions that add further spice to the paradox.

La désignation exemplaire dans Les Nouvelles françaises de Segrais

In the Nouvelles françaises, the designation of characters is remarkable for its high frequency of indefinite expressions. Many occurrences of such expressions are non-standard, insofar as they aim at referents which have already been identified and named. On the basis of the semantic implications inherent to indefinite descriptions, our study aims at understanding the discursive effect produced by these turns of phrase and at accounting for their choice within the frame of the literary genre used by Segrais.

Grammar change in Anglo-Norman and Continental French

Later Anglo-Norman is conventionally portrayed as moribund, isolated from the mainstream of French, and extensively calqued on English. This study demonstrates that in the evolution of indefinite pronouns and modifiers it followed medieval French syntax, allowing the indefinite aucun (“some”) to replace the polarity indefinite nul first in non-assertive and then in negative clauses. Administrative prose documents from England and Northern France attest these developments between 1250–1425, with a slight lag in the insular context consistent with a wave model of the spread of change. The direction of change, in which a positive indefinite spread to other contexts, was unrelated to the patterns of indefinite expressions in Middle English, supporting the view that later Anglo-Norman was largely grammatically independent, not a learner variety heavily influenced by an English substrate.

Artigo indefinido e anáfora

In this paper we begin to analyze ocurrences of anaphoric indefinite expressions. In recent semantic and linguistic theory indefinites are not expected, only recently the phenomenon has been recognized by some theorists. We examine critically some classifications already proposed and try to point out new perspectives to future investigations.

Bare nominals and incorporating verbs in Spanish and Catalan

This paper presents an analysis of bare nominals unmarked for number (BNs) occurring in object position in Spanish and Catalan, on which the BN is a syntactic complement to the verb, but not a semantic argument. After describing the properties that distinguish BNs from other indefinite expressions (bare plurals, indefinite singulars preceded by un ‘a’, and bare mass terms), we argue that these BNs occur in a monadic syntactic configuration in the sense of Hale & Keyser (1998), that they denote first-order properties, and that they are combined with the verb via a modified version of Dayal's (2003) semantics for pseudo-incorporation. Specifically, the proposal consists of a lexical rule that generates the class of verbs that productively accept BN objects, plus a composition rule that treats the BN as modifier of the verb. We point out the advantages of this analysis over three other well-known semantic analyses for combining verbs with property-type nominals. Finally, we show how the analysis can be naturally extended to existential sentences, which combine with BNs although, prima facie, they do not appear to meet the lexical conditions for doing so.

Developmental pathways for first language acquisition of Mandarin nominal expressions: Comparing monolingual with simultaneous Mandarin—English bilingual children

This comparative study explores the first language acquisition of Mandarin nominal expressions by monolingual and simultaneous Mandarin—English bilingual children, with the aim of contributing new data relevant to the autonomous vs. interdependent debate in bilingual first language acquisition. More specifically, it focuses on the developmental sequences of complex definite and indefinite nominal expressions in the forms of [demonstrative + numeral + classifier + noun] and [numeral + classifier + noun] respectively, comparing both qualitatively and quantitatively the developmental pathways and time progression observed in corpora derived from two longitudinal studies. The bilingual corpus analyzed consists of an extensive daily record of utterances from age 10 months to 33 months, while the monolingual corpus is derived from a set of eight video recorded sessions spanning the age range from 20 months to 26 months. The outcomes provide support for the Autonomous Development Hypothesis, to the extent that the developmental pathway of Mandarin nominal expressions as elaborated in the bilingual child’s case is found to be highly comparable with that of the monolingual counterpart and that up to the end of the observation period no apparent transfers from English nominal syntax to Mandarin were observed.

An Experimental Study on the Scope of (Un)modified Indefinites

AbstractThis paper reports on three experiments which investigate the availability of long-distance scope for different types of indefinite expressions, in order to test the predictions of different semantic theories of indefinite scope. The main findings of the experiments are: (i) local, narrow-scope readings are preferred for a indefinites, whereas long-distance scope is preferred for a certain indefinites; and (ii) long-distance scope is more readily available to bare one indefinites than to modified at least/exactly one indefinites, but modified numeral indefinites nevertheless allow long-distance scope more readily than universal quantifiers. While the first finding is consistent with theories that link scope and epistemic specificity (since a certain indefinites are often analyzed as markers of specificity), the second finding suggests that long-distance scope is also available to non-specific, quantificational indefinites. It is shown that the findings are problematic for choice-function theories of indefinite scope, and are more consistent with long-distance scopeshifting, or with accounts that link scope and topicality.

Japanese ka-indefinites and the semantic domain of unknown to the speaker

What are the functions of the indefinite noun in Japanese, a language that does not obligatorily mark indefinite noun phrases? Through comparison with English indefinite expressions, this paper clarifies the semantics of the Japanese ka-indefinite in the light the semantic division known vs. unknown to the speaker (Haspelmath, Martin, 1997. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford University Press, Oxford), a division which has received little attention in semantic research so far. This paper argues that rather than indefiniteness, the ka-indefinite expresses the speaker‘s lack of knowledge of the identity of the referent.

Meaning and Use of Indefinite Expressions

Sentences containing pronouns and indefinite noun phrases can be said to express open propositions, propositions which display gaps to be filled. This paper addresses the question what is the lingu...