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We investigate neg(ation)-raising inferences, wherein negation on a predicate can be interpreted as though in that predicate’s subordinate clause. To do this, we collect a largescale dataset of neg-raising judgments for effectively all English clause-embedding verbs and develop a model to jointly induce the semantic types of verbs and their subordinate clauses and the relationship of these types to neg-raising inferences. We find that some neg-raising inferences are attributable to properties of particular predicates, while others are attributable to subordinate clause structure.
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The typology of actual clauses in Eastern Bantu
This article reports on the existence of actual clause morphology and interpretation in selected Bantu languages. Essentially, we treat the actual clause as an embedded assertion whereby the utterer is committed not only to the truth of the proposition described by the actual clause: It must be the case that the event in the proposition cannot be unrealized (or describe a future state) at the time of the utterance. The Bantu languages in our sample mark the actual clause by a verbal prefix in a typical tense position on the lower verb. This prefix occurs as a single vowel or as a consonant/vowel combination. When the actual clause is a syntactic complement, it co-occurs with verbs that may be incompatible with indicative clauses. The clause is also semantically distinct from other clause types such as the infinitive and the subjunctive. Our analysis of actual clauses as assertions explains why they are not complements of factive verbs. We argue that the source of the speaker’s commitment to truth arises in part from the way actual clauses are licensed by the clauses they are dependent on. That is, we propose that actual clauses are licensed by a “contingent antecedent clause” which is taken to be a precondition for the actual clause assertion. Our approach generalizes to explain other non-complement uses of actual/narrative clause types, typically described as “narrative” tense in Bantu, which bears the exact same morphology
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- Award ID(s):
- 1829122
- PAR ID:
- 10495190
- Publisher / Repository:
- https://journals.openedition.org/lla/9572
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Linguistique et langues africaines
- Issue:
- 9(1)
- ISSN:
- 2429-2230
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Mayan languages have been claimed to lack the category Tense. Temporal interpretation is instead said to be guided by grammatical Aspect (see e.g. Larsen 1988 for K’iche’, Vázquez Álvarez 2002 for Chol, Bohnemeyer 2002 for Yucatec Maya, Coon 2016 for an overview, a.o.). In this paper, I examine the distribution and interpretation of the Tense/Aspect markers x- and k- in K’iche’, traditionally said to mark perfective (completive) and imperfective (incompletive) Aspect, respectively. I consider the co-occurrence possibilities of these markers with temporal adverbials (including temporal clauses), aspectual adverbials (‘in/for an hour’), the adverb na ‘still’, and individual level predicates. The evidence converges on the conclusion that the K’iche’ prefixes x- and k- mark (past and non-past) Tense rather than Aspect. The analysis is also shown to make the correct predictions for temporal matching in embedded clauses. Finally, I consider some uses of k- in past contexts and conclude that they are best seen as instances of the narrative present.more » « less
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Abstract Many languages assign additional conditional interpretations to apparently regular sentential conjunctions (conditional conjunctions, CCs). Following previous ideas (Kaufmann, Magdalena. 2018. Topics in conditional conjunctions. Invited talk at NELS , vol. 49. Cornell University; Starr, Will. 2018. Conjoining imperatives and declaratives. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21. 1159–1176), we provide additional support for the hypothesis that CCs involve topicalized first conjuncts. We argue that Japanese and Korean, which appear to lack CCs, in fact mark them quite transparently. Both languages combine sentential conjunctions with topic markers: Japanese -te=wa (standardly considered one of the language’s conditional connectives) and Korean -ko=nun (occurring naturally, not discussed in the literature). We show that Japanese conditional =to fits into the pattern of CCs as well: it is derived by topicalization of conjunctive =to . Conjunctive =to is normally restricted to NPs, but it can coordinate finite clauses so long as the finite verb does not precede =to (Koizumi, Masatoshi. 2000. String vacuous overt verb raising. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 9(3). 227–285). We argue that this requirement can be met in a topicalized clause carrying default tense; the resultant configuration is the conditional connective =to . Semantically, CCs are known to be more restricted than if -conditionals in not readily realizing epistemic conditionals. The elements - te=wa , =to , and -ko=nun are all subject to exactly this restriction, which we refine to exclude only non-predictive epistemics. Following the transparent structure in Japanese and Korean, we interpret CCs by predicating the regular conjunction distributively of the set of (contextually salient and epistemically accessible) situations described by the topicalized first conjunct. We argue that apparent cases of focus on or within the first conjunct of CCs constitute contrastive topics or corrections.more » « less
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.4000/lla.9572
