Rick Nouwen

Complement Anaphora and Interpretation

Quantificational sentences D(A)(B) allow for subsequent plural anaphoric reference to three sets associated with them: the maximal set A, the reference set A ∩ B and, sometimes, the complement set A ∩ - B. The latter case, where an anaphor refers to the set-theoretical difference of restrictor and scope, has been studied by both psycholinguists and formal semanticists. The phenomenon is particularly interesting because the conditions under which complement anaphora (as this case of anaphora is called) is acceptable depend on formal properties of the antecedent determiner. This paper concentrates on the interpretation of complement anaphora. First, the possibility of reducing complement anaphora to quasi-generic reference to the maximal set (A) is dismissed. Then, I argue that interpreting complement anaphora involves a conflict of several pragmatic constraints. A preliminary optimality theoretic analysis of the paradigm shows that if a strict principle disallowing empty complement set reference is obeyed, complement anaphora can overrule a general preference for reference to A∩B in order to save consistency. Finally, I argue that this non-emptiness condition ought to be reduced to inferability of the existence of a complement set. The contrast between pronominal complement anaphors and other pronouns that link to quantificational sentences is thus explained in terms of a contrast between pronouns with an inferred antecedent and pronouns that choose a salient antecedent.

Vagueness in Communication

This book constitutes the proceedings of the International Workshop on Vagueness in Communication, VIC 2009, held as part of ESSLLI 2009, in Bordeaux, France, July 20-24, 2009. The 11 contributions presented shed a light on new aspects in the area of vagueness in natural language communication. In contrast to the classical instruments of dealing with vagueness - like multi-valued logics, truth value gaps or gluts, or supervaluations - this volume presents new approaches like context-sensitivity of vagueness, the sharpening of vague predicates in context, and the modeling of precision levels.

Degree Modifiers and Monotonicity

In a short squib, Zwicky (1970) wonders what could explain the assignment of certain adverbial functions.1 He observes that there exist pairs of expressions where the positive of the pair is a sentence adverbial, while the negative one is a degree modifier. For instance, unusually in (1) is a degree adverbial. That is, the example expresses that the children are noisy to a degree that is unusual. No such similar reading is available if we replace unusually with its positive counterpart usually. The example in (2) is instead interpreted as saying that it is usual for the children to be noisy.

On Dependent Pronouns and Dynamic Semantics

Within natural language semantics, pronouns are often thought to correspond to variables whose values are contributed by contextual assignment functions. This paper concerns the application of this idea to cases where the antecedent of a pronoun is a plural quantifiers. The paper discusses the modelling of accessibility patterns of quantifier antecedents in a dynamic theory of interpretation. The goal is to reach a semantics of quantificational dependency which yields a fully semantic notion of pronominal accessibility. I argue that certain dependency phenomena that arise in quantificationally created contexts require a representation of context wherein the labelling of antecedents is not rigid but rather dynamic itself. I propose a stack-based alternative to classic assignment functions, along the lines of Vermeulen (1993) and van Eijck (2001), and give a dynamic semantics of quantification which correctly accommodates the problematic anaphoric phenomena.

A Note on the Projection of Appositives

This article offers a thorough examination of the scopal properties of (mainly nominal) appositives. It is often descriptively noted that apposition is scopeless in the sense that its content escapes the scope of any operators that occur in the sentence the appositive is anchored in. I focus on exceptions to that characterisation and compare to what extent existing formal semantic analyses of apposition offer a handle on such exceptions. I then propose an analysis that predicts–rightly it turns out–that the exceptional cases, where appositives occur in the scope of a matrix operator, are part of a general pattern. Unfortunately, this analysis also over-generates severely. This issue, however, offers a new insight in the interaction between the scope of the appositive and the scope of its anchor. A final set of observations ultimately suggests that for a full understanding of appositive semantics it may be necessary to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the class of appositive constructions.

On wh -exclamatives and noteworthiness

We explore a new approach to the semantics of wh-exclamatives, like (1). (1) What a beautiful song John wrote! We will aim for two things: (i) extend the empirical focus beyond English what-and how-exclamatives, to include exclamatives common in other languages that are based on other wh-words; (ii) counter the common assumption that exclamative semantics needs to involve some kind of scalar mechanism. Before we motivate and present our analysis, a word of caution is in order. To simplify matters for this short paper, we will be discussing the semantics of exclamatives like (1) in terms of truth-conditions. Such a move blatantly ignores the fact that an utterance of (1) counts as a speech act that comes with its own intricate and interesting properties, properties which will be quite different from those of an assertion. For the purpose of this short paper, however, we will remain agnostic as to what role the truth-conditions play in the pragma-semantics of exclamatives. [See Rett, 2012; Zanuttini and Portner, 2003, for extensive discussion.]

Two puzzles about requirements

I discuss the semantics of statements of minimum and maximum requirement. I show that, on standard assumptions, such statements receive a non-sensical interpretation. I solve this puzzle by pointing out certain semantic features shared by all end-point markers akin to minimum and maximum.

Cumulative Comparison: Experimental Evidence for Degree Cumulation

In this paper we address the question whether it makes sense to assume that the domain of degrees, as used in degree semantics, consists not just of atoms, but also of degree pluralities. A number of recent works have adopted that assumption, most explicitly (Fitzgibbons et al. Plural Superlatives and Distributivity, Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory, Vol. 18, 2008; Beck, The Art and Craft of Semantics: A Festschrift for Irene Heim, MITWPL, Vol. 70: 91–115, 2014; Dotlacil and Nouwen, Natural Language Semantics, 1–34, 2016). In this paper, we provide experimental evidence for degree pluralities by showing that comparatives may express cumulative relations between degrees.