Intensional Verbs Research Articles

Agreeing objects in Zulu can be indefinite and non-specific

Abstract In a number of Bantu languages, object marking is correlated with a definite or specific interpretation of the agreeing object DP, and similar claims about the semantic effects of object marking have also been made for Zulu (Nguni; S42). This paper examines these claims by applying a range of diagnostic tests for (in)definiteness and (non-)specificity to sentences with object-marked objects in Zulu. The paper’s first finding is that agreeing objects in Zulu can violate the uniqueness requirement that holds for definite expressions, and can therefore appear in contexts in which definite DPs are not tolerated. The second finding is that object-marked objects in Zulu can take narrow scope in relation to intensional verbs and negation, in which case they are interpreted as (scopally) non-specific. Object marking in Zulu therefore cannot be regarded as a morphosyntactic device to mark definiteness or specificity. Rather, it is suggested that the interpretative effects of object marking follow from information structure: agreeing DPs in Zulu are obligatorily dislocated and hence appear outside the focus domain (the vP). Consequently, an agreeing object in Zulu is incompatible with semantic focus, which implies that it can (but crucially, does not have to) be interpreted as denoting a discourse-familiar referent.

Two notions of resemblance and the semantics of ‘what it's like’

ABSTRACT According to the resemblance account of ‘what it's like’ and similar constructions, a sentence such as ‘there is something it's like to have a toothache’ means ‘there is something having a toothache resembles’. This account has proved controversial in the literature; some writers endorse it, many reject it. We show that this conflict is illusory. Drawing on the semantics of intensional transitive verbs, we show that there are two versions of the resemblance account, depending on whether ‘resembles’ is construed notionally or relationally. While well-known criticisms of the resemblance account undermine its relational version, they do not touch its notional version. On the contrary, the notional version is equivalent to various accounts usually interpreted as rivals to resemblance. We end by noting that this resolution of the controversy (a) explains why ‘like’, which is a comparative, appears in a construction that concerns the properties of events and (b) removes any pressure to suppose that ‘like’ is ambiguous between a comparative and a non-comparative sense.

Investigating shared and distinct mechanisms in semantic and syntactic enrichment: a priming study

ABSTRACT Aspectual verbs (e.g. begin) and intensional verbs (e.g. want) can both take entity-denoting NPs as a complement (begin/want the book) and acquire an implicit meaning (e.g. reading). Linguistic theory posits that such enriched implicit meanings can be acquired either by semantic enrichment with aspectual verbs or by syntactic enrichment with intensional verbs. To investigate whether semantic and syntactic enrichment share enrichment operations, we conducted a structural priming study. Experiment 1 repeated the verb on prime and target trials and found evidence for enrichment priming for both verb types. Experiment 2 crossed the verb type and found no evidence for priming. These results suggest that enrichment operations are distinct for aspectual and intensional verbs. However, Experiment 3 repeated Experiment 1 without lexical boost and found no enrichment priming within the verb type. Thus, producing an enriched structure may not robustly activate enrichment structures, leaving open questions concerning shared mechanisms.

Morphosyntactic, Contextual, and Lexical Determinants of Non-Referentiality in Russian

A body of previous research has established that DP structure of certain nominal expressions is optional in Russian, and that it correlates with referentiality (Longobardi 1994; Pereltsvaig 2006). This paper explores the optionality of DP projections in direct objects that are alternately marked with accusative (ACC) and genitive (GEN) case, claiming that the latter are not referential and lack a DP projection even though they are found in argument positions. Building on Longobardi's (1994) hypothesis that referentiality is encoded by DP, Pereltsvaig (2006) presents compelling evidence to show that the non-referentiality of some objects marked with non-canonical GEN is due to structure (i.e., the selection of small nominal QP complements) rather than case. Pereltsvaig (2006) shows that the apparent GEN case on bare NP non-referential objects of na-prefixed verbs is actually assigned by a null Q, with the object itself having ACC case. In this paper, we extend Pereltsvaig's account, showing that selection of non-referential QP objects can be induced by context, independently of any morphosyntactic restriction, such as compelled by a na- prefix. Here too the verbs assign ACC case to the overt or covert head of a complement QP. We also turn to lexically determined non-referentiality, such as with objects of weak intensional verbs like ždat′ 'wait for'. Non-referential objects of these verbs must also be QP projections. However, weak intensional verbs themselves turn out to assign GEN case to these non-referential QPs, in contrast with the two previous cases. We take up, in turn, the three different circumstances in which a non-referential "small nominal" (QP) might be introduced as an argument into the derivation: (i) morphosyntactically (objects of na-verbs), (ii) contextually (objects of non-na-verbs and non-agreeing subjects), and (iii) lexically (objects of weak intensional verbs).

An Empirical Solution to the Puzzle of Macbeth’s Dagger

In this paper I present an empirical solution to the puzzle of Macbeth’s dagger. The puzzle of Macbeth’s dagger is the question of whether, in having his fatal vision of a dagger, Macbeth sees a dagger. I answer this question by addressing a more general one: the question of whether perceptual verbs are intensional transitive verbs (ITVs). I present seven experiments, each of which tests a collection of perceptual verbs for one of the three features characteristic of ITVs. One of these features is Nonexistence: the failure of sentences involving transitive verbs to entail the existence of their direct objects. The experiments reveal that with respect to all three of these features, “see” behaves much more like a paradigmatically extensional verb than an intensional one. But surprisingly, unlike “see”, “perceive” behaves much more like a paradigmatically intensional verb. This shows that the category of perceptual verbs is not uniform with respect to the features of intensionality; while Macbeth does not see a dagger, he may still perceive one.

Sequence of Tense in English and Chinese

This paper delves into the so-called sequence of tense (SOT) phenomena in English and Chinese, in which the reading of the past tense of the embedded clause matches with that of the matrix clause to be simultaneous or past-shifted with the time referred to by the tense in the matrix clause. Our research leads us to conclude this paper as follows. First, Chinese is also an SOT language in that the embedded clause has either a simultaneous or a past-shifted reading if the matrix predicate is an intensional verb in the past tense and the embedded predicate is a stative verb in the past tense as well. Second, both simultaneous and past-shifted readings in Chinese, unlike in English, can be conveyed even when the matrix and the embedded clause are morphologically in the present tense due to the existence of a sentential aspectual marker le. Finally, some ‘episodic verbs’ such as huaiyun ‘pregnant’ and shengbing ‘sick’ in the embedded clause in Chinese, construed as ‘stative predicates’ in English, should be classified as ‘eventive verbs’ in Chinese to yield a past-shifted interpretation.

Intensionality, Reference and Games of Partial Information I. Intensional Transitive Verbs

In this paper I focus on the linguistic constructions in which intensional transitive verbs (ITVs) occur. In order to present the complex semantic profile of the ITVs, I contrast them with the extensional transitive verbs and I inspect the semantic differences of their inferential behaviour with respect to the existential entailment, to the substitution salva veritate of the coreferential terms and to the semantic specificity. Insofar as the sentences containing ITVs are structurally ambiguous between an intensional, de dicto interpretation, and an extensional, de re interpretation, they threaten the coordination between agents. For this reason, if the speaker uses an ITV in one way and the hearer’s reading of it diverges from the speaker’s intended meaning, both agents have a coordination problem. In this regard, using the mathematical framework of games of partial information, I show what conditions have to be satisfied in order for a rational speaker and a rational hearer to efficiently communicate with a sentence in which an ITV occurs and to converge on the right interpretation of the intensional verb construction, when the sentence’s surface syntax is probabilistically silent about which of the de re or de dicto meaning the hearer has to choose in order to coordinate with the speaker. This is the first part of a two-part study.

Condicional e 'ir' no Imperfeito + Infinitivo: questões de temporalidade e de modalidade

In European Portuguese, both the Condicional (approximately corresponding to the English structure would + Infinitive) and the construction ir (‘go’) in the Imperfect + Infinitive express posteriority with respect to a given past interval. In this paper, I show that, in spite of their seemingly similar behaviour, these two forms diverge in a number of significant aspects. In particular, and taking into account the analysis of contexts such as if-clauses and some subordinate complement clauses introduced by factive and intensional verbs, I will argue that, while the Condicional is mainly used to provide modal information, even losing its basic temporal value, the structure ir (‘go’) in the Imperfect + Infinitive always induces a temporal relation of futurity in a past domain, irrespective of the possible modal meanings accompanying it.

From change to value difference

Degree achievements and directed motion verbs are standardly taken to describe events in which an individual undergoes change over time. The spatial uses of these verbs, giving rise to what are known as their extent readings, indicate that a temporal change based semantics is not general enough to capture their behavior. In this paper, we introduce a further range of facts that argues for a fully general analysis of the meaning of degree achievements and directed motion verbs in terms of value difference rather than temporal change. These verbs are uniformly analyzed as intensional verbs that take functional arguments and encode a difference in the value of this argument over a contextually given ordered domain. This analysis accounts naturally for their interaction with a range of adverbial modifiers.

Intensionality and variable objects

This article examines Moltmann�s analysis of intensional transitive verbs (e.g. need, search for), and argues that the analysis fails because the key notion it employs, �variable satisfier�, is inconsistent.

The semantic origins of word order

Where do the different sentence orders in the languages of the world come from? Recently, it has been suggested that there is a basic sentence order, SOV (Subject–Object–Verb), which was the starting point for other sentence orders. Backup for this claim was found in newly emerging languages, as well as in experiments where people are asked to convey simple meanings in improvised gesture production. In both cases, researchers found that the predominant word order is SOV. Recent literature has shown that the pragmatic rule ‘Agent first’ drives the preference for S initial word order, but this rule does not decide between SOV and SVO. This paper presents experimental evidence for grounding the word order that emerges in gesture production in semantic properties of the message to be conveyed. We focus on the role of the verb, and argue that the preference for SOV word order reported in earlier experiments is due to the use of extensional verbs (e.g. throw). With intensional verbs like think, the object is dependent on the agent’s thought, and our experiment confirms that such verbs lead to a preference for SVO instead. We conclude that the meaning of the verb plays a crucial role in the sequencing of utterances in emerging language systems. This finding is relevant for the debate on language evolution, because it suggests that semantics underlies the early formation of syntactic rules.

From change to value difference

Degree achievements and directed motion verbs are standardly taken to describe events in which an individual undergoes change over time. The spatial uses of these verbs, giving rise to what are known as their extent readings, indicate that a temporal change based semantics is not general enough to capture their behavior. In this paper, we introduce a further range of facts that argues for a fully general analysis of the meaning of degree achievements and directed motion verbs in terms of value difference rather than temporal change. These verbs are uniformly analyzed as intensional verbs that take functional arguments and encode a difference in the value of this argument over a contextually given ordered domain. This analysis accounts naturally for their interaction with a range of adverbial modifiers.

A Constructive Type-Theoretical Formalism for the Interpretation of Subatomically Sensitive Natural Language Constructions

The analysis of atomic sentences and their subatomic components poses a special problem for proof-theoretic approaches to natural language semantics, as it is far from clear how their semantics could be explained by means of proofs rather than denotations. The paper develops a proof-theoretic semantics for a fragment of English within a type-theoretical formalism that combines subatomic systems for natural deduction [20] with constructive (or Martin-Lof) type theory [8, 9] by stating rules for the formation, introduction, elimination and equality of atomic propositions understood as types (or sets) of subatomic proof-objects. The formalism is extended with dependent types to admit an interpretation of non-atomic sentences. The paper concludes with applications to natural language including internally nested proper names, anaphoric pronouns, simple identity sentences, and intensional transitive verbs.

Fiction and Fictionalism

What is a fictional character? Nothing, according to Mark Sainsbury. Yet it is true to say that there are fictional characters. How? Because there are fictions according to which there are specific individuals. And it can be true to say that Anna Karenina is more intelligent than Emma Bovary. How? Because the truth-value of the sentence is to be assessed under the (false) presupposition that there are such people as Emma and Anna. And it is true to say that Conan Doyle's novels represent Sherlock Holmes, that I have been thinking about Holmes, and that Holmes is a famous character. How? Because such sentences either involve, or can be explained in terms of, intensional verbs or operators, and intensional contexts do not require that something be the thing which is represented, or thought about, or regarded in such a way as to make it famous. Sainsbury offers these strategies as ways for an irrealist—somebody who denies that explaining the nature of fiction requires us to believe in objects which are the characters of fictions—to explain away certain sentences which appear to require exactly such objects to make them true. These irrealist explanations are designed to defuse certain motivations for realism: namely, the apparent commitments of certain sentences to an ontology of fictional characters. Sainsbury's arguments for the adequacy of irrealism are complemented by arguments for the inadequacy of realism, targeted at three major realist views: that fictional characters are abstract things (unlike you and me, who are concrete); that they are occupants of other possible worlds (unlike you and me, who live in the actual world); and that they are non-existent things (capable of being referred to and quantified over as we are, but nevertheless things of a different ontological status).

Predication in Conceptual Realism

Conceptual realism begins with a conceptualist theory of the nexus of predication in our speech and mental acts, a theory that explains the unity of those acts in terms of their referential and predicable aspects. This theory also contains as an integral part an intensional realism based on predicate nominalization and a reflexive abstraction in which the intensional contents of our concepts are “object”-ified, and by which an analysis of predication with intensional verbs can be given. Through a second nominalization of the common names that are part of conceptual realism’s theory of reference (via quantifier phrases), the theory also accounts for both plural reference and predication and mass noun reference and predication. Finally, a separate nexus of predication based on natural kinds and the natural properties and relations nomologically related to those natural kinds, is also an integral part of the framework of conceptual realism.

Parasitic degree phrases

This paper investigates gaps in degree phrases with too, as in John is too rich [for the monastery to hire ___ ]. We present two curious restrictions on such gapped degree phrases. First, the gaps must ordinarily be anteceded by the subject of the associated gradable adjective. Second, when embedded under intensional verbs, gapped degree phrases are ordinarily restricted to surface scope, unlike their counterparts without gaps. Just as puzzlingly, we show that these restrictions are lifted when there is overt wh-movement in the main clause, revealing a striking similarity between the distribution of gapped degree phrases and so-called parasitic gap constructions. These findings, we argue, suggest that the theory of parasitic gaps needs to accommodate gapped degree phrases. Specifically, they argue that parasitic constituents are null operator structures—and under the right conditions need not be accompanied by matrix wh-movement.

A unified approach to split scope

The goal of this paper is to propose a unified approach to the split scope readings of negative indefinites, comparative quantifiers, and numerals. There are two main observations that justify this approach. First, split scope shows the same kinds of restrictions across these different quantifiers. Second, split scope always involves low existential force. In our approach, following Sauerland, natural language determiner quantifiers are quantifiers over choice functions, of type ,t>,t>. In split readings, the quantifier over choice functions scopes above other operators (such as intensional verbs like must or can). Determiner quantifiers leave a choice-function trace when they move and this trace combines with the noun restriction, which is interpreted low. That split scope always involves low existential force is derived, without stipulation, from Kratzer’s idea that low existential force can be achieved via binding (into the noun restriction).

Effects of intensionality on sentence and discourse processing: Evidence from eye-movements

Intensional verbs like want select for clausal complements expressing propositions, though they can be perfectly natural when combined with a direct object. There are two interesting phenomena associated with intensional transitive expressions. First, it has been suggested that their interpretation requires enriched compositional operations, similarly to expressions like began the book (e.g., Pustejovsky, 1995). Secondly, when the object position is filled by an indefinite NP, it preferentially receives an unspecific reading, under which definite anaphora is not supported (e.g., Moltmann, 1997). We report three eye-tracking experiments investigating the time-course of processing of sentence pairs like John wanted a beer. The beer was warm. Consistent with the enriched composition hypothesis, results showed that intensional transitive constructions (e.g., wanted a beer) take longer to process than control expressions (e.g., drank/ wanted to drink a beer). However, contrary to previous findings, the processing of the continuation sentence appears to be not affected by whether the definite NP ( the beer) can be interpreted as coreferential with the indefinite or not. We interpret the results with respect to accounts of semantic processing relying on the notions of enriched composition and non-actuality implicature.

Intensional verbs in event semantics

In Attitude Problems, I gave an account of opacity in the complement of intensional transitive verbs that combined neo-Davidsonian event-semantics with a hidden-indexical account of substitution failure. In this paper, I extend the account to clausal verbs.

Intensional verbs and their intentional objects

The complement of transitive intensional verbs, like any nonreferential complement, can be replaced by a 'special quantifier' or 'special pronoun' such as something, the same thing, or what. In previous work on predicative complements and that-clauses I argued that special quantifiers and pronouns introduce entities that would not have occurred in the semantic structure of the sentence without the special quantifier, entities that one would refer to with the corresponding nominalization. Thus something in John thinks something or the same thing in John thinks the same thing as Mary ranges not over propositions, but rather over entities of the sort 'John's thought that S' or 'the thought that S', without those entities acting as arguments of the think-relation. Despite initial apparent lack of evidence for this view for transitive verbs like need, a closer inspection of a greater range of data gives in fact further support for the 'Nominalization Theory' of special quantifiers, once 'nominalization' is viewed in a suitably extended and flexible way.