Association with foci

132 Pages·2012·1.26 MB·English

by  Maziar Toosarvandani

AssociationwithFoci
by
MaziarDoustdarToosarvandani
Adissertationsubmittedinpartialsatisfactionofthe
requirementsforthedegreeof
DoctorofPhilosophy
in
Linguistics
inthe
GraduateDivision
ofthe
UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley
Committeeincharge:
ProfessorLineMikkelsen,Chair
ProfessorAndrewGarrett
ProfessorJohannaNichols
ProfessorChristopherPotts
Spring2010

Abstract
AssociationwithFoci
by
MaziarDoustdarToosarvandani
DoctorofPhilosophyinLinguistics
UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley
ProfessorLineMikkelsen,Chair
Associationwithfocushas,sinceJackendoff’s(1972)dissertation,beentheobjectofintensestudy.
Most researchers, however, have concentrated on explaining the semantic variability of only and
even, whose truth conditions vary with the position of focus. I take as my starting point another
property of associating expressions. Both only and even restrict the distribution of focus, a prop-
erty that, I argue, they share with a range of other lexical items. But, while only and even take a
single argument and require there to be a focus somewhere inside that argument, expressions like
adversativebut andletalonetaketwoarguments,therebyassociatingwithtwofoci.
Associating expressions, of both the one- and two-place varieties, have two things in common.
First, they are crosscategorial in their syntax, taking arguments of a variety of different types.
Second,theyevokemultiplealternatives—differentpossibleanswertoaquestion.Together,these
two independent properties of associating expressions interact with the question under discussion
(Roberts 1996, 2004) to give rise to the restriction on the distribution of focus. My approach to
association with focus departs from previous ones in important ways. Associating expressions
neithermakereferencetofocusintheirlexicalentry(Rooth1985,1992,1996b)nortothequestion
under discussion (Beaver and Clark 2008), providing a more satisfying answer to the question of
whyonlysomeexpressionsassociatewithfocus.
1
Contents
Listoftypographicconventions iii
Acknowledgments iv
1 Introduction 1
2 Adistributionalrestrictiononfocus 4
2.1 Whatisfocus? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Thesyntaxofonlyandeven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Secondoccurrencefocus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Two-placeassociatingexpressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5 Asemantictypology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5.1 Additives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5.2 Adversatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5.3 Exclusives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.6 Thebigpicture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3 Theadversatives 24
3.1 Twotypesofbut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Thesyntaxofadversativebut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3 Amoreabstractanalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4 EvidencefromPersian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.5 Returnofthepuzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.6 Thenegativeelement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.7 Thesemanticsofadversativebut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.7.1 Exhaustivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.7.2 Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.7.3 Usingadversativebut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4 Thescalaradditives 53
4.1 Thesyntaxofletalone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2 Thesemanticsofletalone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3 Aninformationalasymmetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.4 Derivingthe‘secondconjunct’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
i
4.5 Barelyaproblem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.6 Lettingnegativepolarityalone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.6.1 Downwardentailingenvironments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.6.2 Flippingscales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.6.3 Puttingtogetherthepieces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.7 Extendingtheanalysistoeven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5 Atheoryofassociationwithfocus 81
5.1 Wherewewere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.2 Alternativesemanticsforfocus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.2.1 TheclassicRoothianpicture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.2.2 Astructuredapproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.2.3 An‘intermediate’alternative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.3 Questionsunderdiscussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.4 GroenendijkandStokhof’ssemanticsforquestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.5 Derivingthesemanticeffectsoffocus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.6 Theadversatives’distributionalrestrictiononfocus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.7 Thescalaradditives’distributionalrestrictiononfocus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.8 Gettingfocussmaller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6 Conclusion 109
6.1 Alookback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.2 Semantictheories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.3 Syntactictheories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.4 Pragmatictheories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
References 112
Bibliography 117
ii
List of typographic conventions
Interlinearglossing
1 firstperson M masculine
2 secondperson NEG negation
3 thirdperson OBJ objectmarker
ADJ adjectivizer PAST pasttense
F feminine PL plural
IND indefinite SG singular
Logicalsymbols
logicalconjunction
^
logicaldisjunction
_
materialconditional
!
negation
¬
entailment
)
x,y set
{ }
x,y orderedpair
h i
? emptyset
setmembershiprelation
2
subsetrelation
✓
interpretationfunction
JVaKriableconventions
w,w,w ,... worlds(types)
0 00
x,y,z,... individuals(typee)
p,q,r,... truthvalues(typet)
p,q,r,... propositions(type s,t )
h i
f,g,h,... one-placefunctionsonentities(type e,t )
h i
f,g,h,... properties(type e, s,t )
h h ii
R,S,T,... two-placerelations(type e, e,t )
h h ii
R,S,T,... intensionaltwo-placerelations(type e, e, s,t )
h h h iii
P,Q,R,... generalizedquantifiers(type e,t ,t )
hh i i
iii
Acknowledgments
I have been fortunate to present my work to audiences at the 2009 Linguistic Society of America
Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Cal-
ifornia,LosAngeles,theUniversityofChicago,andtheUniversityofMassachusetts,Amherst,as
well as numerous presentations in the Berkeley Syntax and Semantics Circle. Their questions and
comments have spurred major changes in my thinking. I have also had fruitful exchanges, in per-
sonandbyemail,withAnastasiaGiannakidou,LarryHorn,MichaelIsrael,RussellLee-Goldman,
JohnMacFarlane,JasonMerchant,JoeySabbagh,andOsamuSawada.
Throughout my linguistics education, I have had the best teachers. My undergraduate advisor,
Lise Dobrin, gave me an early appreciation for data and for integrating it with linguistic theory.
Kyle Johnson asked me a bunch of hard questions about gapping my second year, and this thesis
is in many ways a product of my attempts to answer them (though, in the end, I don’t think I do).
JohannaNicholshasencouragedmetoexaminewhether,andifsohow,myclaimsextendtoother
languages.ChrisPottshasbeenaconstantsourceofinspiration,andwithouthisprobingquestions,
this thesis would not have been the same. Andrew Garrett has pushed me always to be a better
linguist, challenging my assumptions and asking me for more and better data. My advisor Line
Mikkelsen has, besides shaping this dissertation in content and form, mentored me intellectually,
professionally,andpersonally,forwhichIamgrateful.
Iowe ahugedebtto myfriendsandmy family. Theyhavealways believed inme,andwithout
themIwouldnothavefinishedgraduateschool.
iv
Chapter 1
Introduction
When we are trying to understand the truth conditions of a sentence, we usually only have to
considerthewordsitcontainsandhowtheyarecombined.Forthemostpart,prosody—including
stressandintonation—doesnotseemtomatter.Associationwithfocus,aphenomenonintroduced
to generative linguists by Jackendoff (1972), comes as something of a surprise, then.1 When a
sentencecontainsan ASSOCIATING EXPRESSION,somethinglikeonlyoreven,itstruthconditions
canvarywiththepositionoffocus.Since,inEnglish,thecanonicalrealizationoffocusisprosodic,
the sentence’s meaning appears to change with just a change in intonation. Why do some lexical
itemsassociatewithfocus,butnotothers?ThisisthequestionIamtryingtoanswerhere.
I start, though, with a different property of association with focus, one that is somewhat less
conspicuous than the semantic interaction with focus. Jackendoff observes that only and even also
restrict the distribution of focus. If only adjoins to the subject, then there must be a focus some-
where inside the subject. If it adjoins to the verb phrase, there must be a focus somewhere inside
the verb phrase. There are, I argue, more expressions that constrain the position of focus than first
meets the eye. In particular, there is a class of lexical items that require the presence of two foci,
one inside each of their syntactic sisters. These two-place associating expressions include adver-
sative but (Anscombre and Ducrot 1977, Lang 1984:238–262, Horn 2001:402–413) and let alone
(Fillmore,Kay,andO’Connor1988).Whenadversativebut coordinatestwonounphrasesubjects,
there must be a focus inside each of these noun phrases. When it coordinates two verb phrases,
thentheremustbeafocusinsideeachverbphrase.
The obligatoriness of associated foci is not immediately obvious. A number of confounding
factors have led researchers in the past to the spurious conclusion that they are optional. The first
half of Chapter 2 is dedicated to establishing that associating expressions do, in fact, restrict the
distributionoffocus.Whileonlyandevenontheonehandandadversativebutandletaloneonthe
other are unified in this way, they differ in another. The truth conditions of sentences containing
a one-place associating expression can vary with just a change in the position of focus. But such
semantic variation is not possible with adversative but or let alone. Without modifying the con-
tent of the sentence, changing the focus structure of a sentence containing a two-place associating
expressionactuallyresultsininfelicity.IntheremainderofChapter2,Ioutlineatypologyofasso-
ciating expressions, laying the groundwork for my account of why they all restrict the distribution
offocusandyetdifferinsuchanimportantway.
1JackendoffattributestheobservationtoamanuscriptbySusanFischer.
1
I provide this account in Chapter 5. My approach is fundamentally discourse-oriented. I adopt
Roberts’ (1996, 2004) question-under-discussion framework, where discourse is structured by
questions ordered on a question-under-discussion stack. In Roberts’ original formulation, these
questions are ordered by their relative informativeness. Drawing on Groenendijk’s (1999) logic of
interrogation,Iaddadditionalconstraintsonthestructureofdiscourse.Associationwithfocusthen
arisesbecauseofhowassociatingexpressionsinteractwiththequestionunderdiscussion.Theyall
sharetwoindependentlymotivatedproperties:
(i) Crosscategoriality
Anassociatingexpressioncantakesubpartsofthesentenceasitsargument.
(ii) Multiplealternatives
Anassociatingexpressionevokesmorethanonealternative.
The first property, crosscategoriality, is syntactic. One-place associating expressions are adverbs
that adjoin to various constituents in the sentence. Two-place associating expressions are coordi-
nators that can combine constituents of a wide variety of types. The second property is semantic.
Associatingexpressionsallevokemultiplealternativeanswerstoaquestion.
IintroducethetwopropertiesaboveinChapter2,andIshowhowtheygiverisetoassociation
with focus in Chapter 5. These two chapters bookend Chapters 3 and 4, where I draw out the
systematicparallelsbetweentheone-andtwo-placeassociatingexpressionsinconsiderabledetail.
This is necessary since, while the syntax and semantics of only and even have been extensively
treated, their two-place counterparts are less well studied. A large part of the two central chapters
isgivenovertoprovidingsyntacticandsemanticanalysesforadversativebut andletalone.
In Chapter 6, I draw out the consequences of my account of association with focus for the
theory of focus more generally. The generative conception of focus originates partly in Halliday’s
(1967b:226) view that the focus of a sentence ‘replac[es] the wh-element in a presupposed wh-
question.’2 This is essentially a pragmatic concept, one where focus serves to constrain the dis-
course contexts in which a sentence can be used. The study of focus would, under this view, falls
outsidethedomainoftruth-conditional,model-theoreticsemantics,asdevelopedbyFrege,Tarski,
Davidson, Kripke, Montague, and others—an approach to natural language meaning in which to
knowwhatasentencemeansistoknowtheconditionsunderwhichitistrue.Focusdoesnotaffect
asentence’struthconditions,onlyitsfelicityconditions.
Theseemingexceptiontothis,aswehaveseen,isassociationwithfocus.Withassociatingex-
pressions,thepositionoffocuscanaffecttruthconditions.ThedominantapproachsinceJackend-
off’sdissertationhasbeentopostulateagrammaticalmechanismforderivingthecorrectmeaning
of only or even. In semantic theories of focus, such as Rooth’s (1985, 1992) alternative semantics,
information about focus is represented model theoretically as a dimension of meaning that lies,
usually invisibly, alongside the ordinary one we are accustomed to. Associating expressions make
reference to this alternate dimension so that focus contributes directly to their meaning. Nowhere
in the account of association with focus that I propose do associating expressions make reference
to focus as part of their syntax or semantics. The distributional restriction on focus arises from
2There are, of course, other information-structural categories, even within Halliday’s framework. These include
TOPIC,COMMENT,THEME,RHEME,andnodoubtothers.SeeVallduví1992:28–52foranexcellentdiscussionofhow
theseconceptsrelatetoeachother.
2
how two properties of associating expressions—their crosscategoriality and the multiple alterna-
tives they evoke—interact with the question under discussion. All focus does, then, is constrain
thediscoursecontextsinwhichagivensentencecanappear.
Anoteondata WhereverpossibleIhaveusednaturallyoccurringdata.Eachexampleisaccom-
panied by the type of source it comes from (either corpus, internet, literature, or periodical), and
the sources themselves are provided in the references section. Corpus examples all come from the
British National Corpus (version 2).3 They are sourced with a three-character code corresponding
tothetextoforiginfollowedbythelinenumberwithinthattext.Forconstructedexamples,English
judgments are my own, while Persian judgments come from three native speakers of the dialect
spoken in Iran, who reside either in Tehran, Iran or the United States. I have added focus marking
toexamplesfromwrittensourcesaccordingtomyintuitions.
3Distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on behalf of the BNC Consortium; all rights in the texts
citedarereserved.
3