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227 Pages·2012·4.46 MB·English

ANCHORING PRAGMATICS IN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS
ADissertationPresented
by
MARÍABIEZMA
SubmittedtotheGraduateSchoolofthe
UniversityofMassachusettsAmherstinpartialfulfillment
oftherequirementsforthedegreeof
DOCTOROFPHILOSOPHY
May2011
Linguistics
(cid:13)c CopyrightbyMaríaBiezma2011
AllRightsReserved
ANCHORING PRAGMATICS IN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS
ADissertationPresented
by
MARÍABIEZMA
Approvedastostyleandcontentby:
ChristopherPotts,Chair
RajeshBhatt,Member
LynFrazier,Member
AdrianStaub,Member
MargaretSpeas,DepartmentHead
Linguistics
Helen: [sobbing]What’llIdo? What’llIdo?
Edna: [shouting] What are you talking about? [...] My God... [swatting
Helen with a newspaper] Pull-yourself-together! "What will you do?" Is
this a question? [...] Go, confront the problem. Fight! Win! [normal
voice]Andcallmewhenyougetback,darling. Ienjoyourvisits.
EdnaMode,Theincredibles
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I will keep these acknowledgments brief. I want to take the chance to thank all the
people at UMass who helped me during these six years. I want to specially thank my
committee,ChristopherPotts,RajeshBhatt,LynFrazierandAdrianStaubforalltheirhelp
andsupportduringthistime.
v
ABSTRACT
ANCHORING PRAGMATICS IN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS
MAY2011
MARÍABIEZMA
Licenciatura,UNIVERSIDADCOMPLUTENSEDEMADRID
M.A.,UNIVERSITYOFOTTAWA
Ph.D.,UNIVERSITYOFMASSACHUSETTSAMHERST
Directedby: ProfessorChristopherPotts
The goal of this dissertation is to investigate some of the ways in which pragmatic
meanings are generated on the basis of syntax and semantics. The theoretical motivation
guiding this research is to contribute towards the understanding of how pragmatics is an-
choredinsyntaxandsemantics,payingparticularattentiontotheroleofdiscourse.
The focus of this dissertation is the ‘discourse-driven’ construction of meaning. In this
dissertation I investigate various ways in which the interaction between syntax, semantics
and discourse work together to give rise to meanings that cannot (straightforwardly) be
accountedforinisolationfromdiscourse. Intermsofdata,thefocusisonHPCs,astructure
thatIhavearguedisatypeofconditionalinSpanish. HPCsserveasidealwindowsintothe
interaction between syntax, semantics and discourse. They are non-canonical structures,
‘reduced’ from the point of view of syntax (lacking inflectional projections). They give
rise to a varied and rich range of meanings and allow us to see the importance of paying
attention to the interaction between syntax, semantics and discourse to understand how
meaningsareconstructed. Ialsodrawcomparisonswithotherlanguages,inparticularwith
Englishoptatives,whichIclaimareverysimilarto HPCs.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................... v
ABSTRACT .............................................................. vi
LISTOFTABLES......................................................... xi
LISTOFFIGURES .......................................................xii
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................... 1
2. HPCS ................................................................. 5
2.1 Afirstapproachto HPCs.............................................. 6
2.1.1 Bosque’scharacterizationof HPCs............................... 7
2.1.1.1 Comparisonwithimperatives .......................... 8
2.1.1.2 Bosque’sanalysisof HPCsasretrospective
imperatives .....................................10
2.2 Discussion ........................................................ 12
2.2.1 #Thatisfalse ............................................... 12
2.2.2 Noimperativemorphology.................................... 13
2.2.3 3rd personreference ......................................... 16
2.2.4 Stativepredicates............................................ 17
2.2.5 Weirdorders................................................ 17
2.2.6 HPCsarealwaysreplies ...................................... 18
2.2.7 Experiment1:HPCsaretiedtodesires........................... 19
2.2.7.1 Method ........................................... 20
2.2.7.2 Resultsanddiscussion ............................... 22
2.2.8 Settlingfortheweakest....................................... 22
2.2.9 Duh! ...................................................... 23
2.2.10 Summary .................................................. 24
2.3 Conclusion ........................................................ 24
3. HPCSARECONDITIONALS........................................... 25
3.1 Intuitivecharacterization ............................................ 25
3.2 Argumentsinfavorofaconditional-likeanalysisof HPCs................. 27
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3.2.1 MatrixClausePhenomena .................................... 28
3.2.2 Conditionalswithsubject-auxiliaryinversionintheantecedent...... 32
3.2.3 LicensingFree-choiceitems................................... 38
3.2.4 Summary .................................................. 39
3.3 Entertainingapossibility: HPCsspelloutconsequents ................... 39
3.3.1 RestrictorsVs. NuclearScopes ................................ 41
3.3.2 Thetimeofdesire ........................................... 43
3.3.3 Counterfactuality ............................................ 45
3.3.4 Focusadverbs............................................... 46
3.3.5 Summary .................................................. 46
3.4 HPCsaretenseless .................................................. 47
3.5 Conclusion ........................................................ 53
4. MODALITYIN HPCS ................................................. 54
4.1 IsΨauniversaldeonticmodal? ...................................... 54
4.1.1 Theinterpretation ........................................... 55
4.1.2 Thestructure ............................................... 56
4.1.3 Conclusion ................................................. 58
4.2 IsΨauniversalcounterfactualmodal?................................. 58
4.3 Informativityin HPCs: Fallingfortheweakest .......................... 62
4.3.1 Astrictsemanticsforcounterfactuals ........................... 62
4.3.2 Strengthinconditionals ...................................... 64
4.3.3 Whereastrictsemanticsgoeswrong............................ 67
4.3.4 Astrictsemanticsforcounterfactualsthatallowsmonotonicity...... 69
4.3.5 HPCs,strengthandinformativity ............................... 71
4.3.6 Summary .................................................. 73
4.4 Conclusion ........................................................ 73
5. OPTATIVES .......................................................... 75
5.1 Focusadverbsandtheirscopeandassociationinoptatives ................ 77
5.1.1 Data....................................................... 77
5.1.2 Thescopeandassociationofonly .............................. 81
5.1.2.1 Thescopeofthefocusadverb......................... 81
5.1.2.2 Theassociationofthefocusadverbinoptatives.......... 86
5.1.3 Optativeswithoutconsequentsareconditionals................... 88
5.1.3.1 Abstractionsoverpropositions ........................ 88
5.1.3.2 ifonly! optativescancoexistwithanantecedent ......... 92
5.1.3.3 Embeddability...................................... 94
5.1.3.4 Conjunction........................................ 94
5.1.3.5 Allowingfordifferentfollow-upinquiries............... 95
5.1.3.6 Then.............................................. 97
5.1.3.7 Counterfactualityanduncertainty...................... 99
5.1.4 Experiment: ifonly! andquantificationalstructures .............. 101
viii
5.1.4.1 Method .......................................... 102
5.1.4.2 ResultsandDiscussion ............................. 103
5.1.5 Conclusion ................................................ 106
5.2 DesirabilityandtheIQuDinoptatives ................................ 107
5.2.1 Topicalityinoptatives ....................................... 109
5.2.1.1 Topicandfocusinoptatives ......................... 109
5.2.1.2 Optativesandtopic-drop ............................ 111
5.2.2 InterimSummary........................................... 112
5.2.3 Trackingdownspeaker’sintentions............................ 113
5.2.3.1 TheIQuDinoptatives .............................. 114
5.2.3.2 Only............................................. 117
5.2.3.3 Thescaleinoptatives............................... 120
5.2.3.4 FromonlytotheIQuD.............................. 124
5.2.3.5 SummaryandacautionarynoteonIQuDs ............. 127
5.3 HPCsandOptatives ................................................ 128
5.3.1 Derivingdesirabilityin HPCs ................................. 130
5.3.2 Spanishconditionals: Experiment ............................. 134
5.3.2.1 Method .......................................... 134
5.3.2.2 Resultsanddiscussion .............................. 136
5.3.3 Whosedesires? ............................................ 138
5.4 Conclusion ....................................................... 142
6. INVERSION ......................................................... 144
6.1 Inversionand HPCs ................................................ 147
6.1.1 Schwarzschild’s GIVEN...................................... 152
6.1.2 HPCs,invertedconditionalsand GIVENNESS .................... 154
6.1.3 Interimsummary ........................................... 162
6.2 Inversionin HPCsandreproaches .................................... 162
6.2.1 The‘reproach’meaningin HPCs .............................. 162
6.2.2 Experiment: Inversionin HPCsandreproaches .................. 164
6.2.2.1 Method .......................................... 164
6.2.2.2 Resultsanddiscussion .............................. 166
6.2.2.3 Conclusion ....................................... 168
6.3 Inversioninconditionals: thecaseofEnglish .......................... 169
6.3.1 CounterfactualinversionandmovementfromTtoC ............. 169
6.3.2 Thediscoursestatusoftheantecedent.......................... 175
6.3.2.1 Apresuppositionalaccount .......................... 175
6.3.2.2 Animplicatureaccount ............................. 176
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6.3.2.3 Explainingthedata................................. 179
6.3.3 Focusadverbs.............................................. 181
6.3.4 Question/answerpairsandclefts .............................. 182
6.3.5 Conclusion ................................................ 184
6.4 Whyinversion? ................................................... 185
6.5 Conclusion ....................................................... 186
7. CONCLUSION ....................................................... 188
7.1 Majorfindings .................................................... 188
7.2 Futureresearch ................................................... 189
APPENDICES
A. MATERIALSEXPERIMENT1: HPCSARETIEDTODESIRES ......... 191
B. MATERIALSEXPERIMENT2: OPTATIVESSETTLINGFORTHE
WEAKEST........................................................194
C. MATERIALSEXPERIMENT3: SPANISHCONDITIONALS............. 196
D. MATERIALSEXPERIMENT4: CONDITIONALINVERSIONAND
REPROACHES ...................................................200
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................ 208
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