Craige Roberts

Domain Restriction in Dynamic Semantics

In natural language, quantification is normally restricted quantification. Since Aristotle, the tripartite nature of quantifiers and other operators has been recognized, as given schematically in (1): (1)[Operator, Restriction, Nuclear Scope].

The Best Question: Explaining the Projection Behavior of Factives

This article deals with projection in factive sentences. The article first challenges standard assumptions by presenting a series of detailed observations about the interpretations of factive sentences in context, showing that what implication projects, if any, is quite variable and that projection is tightly constrained by prosodic and contextual information about the alternatives under consideration. The article then proposes an account which accommodates the variability of the data and sensitivity to contextual alternatives. The account is formulated within a modified version of Roberts 1996/2012 question-based model of discourse.

The Indiana University Haitian Creole Dictionary: Problems in Bilingual Lexicography

The Indiana University Dictionary of Haitian Creole, French and English (IUHCD) was compiled under the direction of Albert Valdman from 19761980, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.1 This paper focuses on the problems encountered in compiling a dictionary of a language without a fully developed literary tradition. As linguists have stressed for many years, Haitian Creole is a fully developed language, although its low status reflects the older notion that it is only a bastardized and inadequate French. While Haitian Creole is spoken by the entire population of Haiti, French is the official language of the country and is used for government administrative functions, in courts, schools and churches. Knowledge of French is limited to the ten percent of the population which is educated. In recent years, the government has begun to explore the possibility of providing elementary education in Haitian Creole. A certain degree of official recognition was accorded to the vernacular by the Constitution of 1964, article 35: