#clausal embedding

[synsemuca]

Presentation: Monday, March 11 - Tanya Bondarenko & Patrick D. Elliott “On the monotonicity of attitudes: NPIs and clausal embedding”

Our speaker will be Tanya Bondarenko from Harvard University and Patrick D. Elliott from the University of Düsseldorf

Abstract: This goal of this presentation is to provide an account of an observation made by Sharvit (2023, henceforth Sharvit’s puzzle): NPIs can be licensed in complement clauses that occur inside of definite descriptions, but not relative clauses. We show that all existing accounts of clausal embedding fail to account for this fact, including Kratzer’s content-based semantics (Kratzer 2006, 2016) which is based on Hintikka’s (1969) treatment of attitude verbs as universal modals, and recent refinements which equate the content of an attitudinal eventuality with the proposition denoted by the embedded clause (Moulton 2009, Elliott 2017, Bondarenko 2022). Independently, the latter equality-based approaches are thought to be problematic since they render attitude reports non-monotonic, thus failing to capture a class of entailments which are straightforward from a Hintikkan perspective. In this talk, we propose that monotonicity of attitude reports is best modelled with the notion of incrementality (Krifka 1998). We show that once equality semantics is supplemented with the idea that monotonic attitudes have incremental propositional content, we not only fix the bad predictions of this approach about entailment, but also solve a puzzle about NPI licensing (Sharvit 2023) that other approaches cannot account for.

The workshop will take place from 4pm to 6pm (CET) over Zoom.

[linguistlist-blog]

Calls: Clausal Complementation Across Categories

Call for Papers: The Leibniz-Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin is pleased to announce a workshop to be held June 19th-20th, 2025, generously supported in part by the van Riemsdijk Foundation (VRF), with the title Clausal Complementation Across Categories.​ Invited Speakers: Nikos Angelopoulos (CNRS) Johanna Benz (UPenn) Kajsa Djärv (Edinburgh) Kalle Müller (CNRS) This workshop focuses on the relationship between clause-embedding attitude predicates and the clauses with http://dlvr.it/THVcp6

[linguistlinguine]

Svennevig 2010, Language in Society

Pre-empting reference problems in conversation

By: Jan Svennevig

Published by: Language in Society Volume 39 Pages 173–202

LL Abstract:

In this article, Svennevig identifies how conversationalists deal with problems of reference as they are producing their turns at talk. The article discusses two ways that speakers change their turns in progress in order to introduce a reference to an interlocutor or to check their understanding of that reference. The author discusses previously-known processes of modifying or expanding a turn in order to accomplish this reference-checking, and proposes a heretofore-undescribed practice where speakers minimize disruption to surrounding talk by embedding referent information before a referring expression has been produced.

LL Summary:

Svennevig begins the article with some data introducing how establishing reference is a joint accomplishment between speaker and hearer. He notes that problems of reference may occur at two levels: at the level of linguistic form (using an unfamiliar linguistic expression) or at the level of identification of the referent (when a place, a person, or an object may not be uniquely identifiable to the interlocutor). He ends the introduction by arguing that the insertion of an existential clause into an incomplete syntactic unit is a convention for dealing with emergent problems of reference. Next, the author describes previous research on references from the perspective of interactional sociolinguistics, outlining studies on the practices employed to check recognition of a referent that create intersubjectivity between interlocutors. Research from Auer, Schegloff, and others suggests that speakers prefer minimal or single reference forms yet create opportunities for the interlocutor to respond. In the next section, Svennevig provides background on theories of common ground where interactants rely on physical copresence, prior conversations, and community membership as resources for assessing the common ground. The author distinguishes between two kinds of referents signaling whether a linguistic expression is expected to be in the communal lexicon: those that are uniquely identifiable (like pronouns, definite noun phrases, and names) and those that are not uniquely identifiable (indefinite nouns). He uses some data from Norwegian to show how particles mark upcoming referents as not accessible, further outlining how subjects are often identifiable referents that are placed initially in utterances or introduced in existential clauses. Svennevig ends this section by identifying how the most common reference problem in spontaneous conversation is speakers overestimating common ground. He distinguishes between practices of expanding a turn before or after a problematic term has been produced, and identifies three preemptive practices speakers engage in to avoid problems of reference: marking the expression as unfamiliar, inserting background information, or checking what the interlocutor knows about the expression or referent. Next, Svennevig examines post-positioned turn expansions in data from a corpus of interviews in job centers for immigrants and Oslo sociolinguistic interviews. Excerpts from interviews with social workers and immigrants show how the workers suspend activity during explanations of referents in a marked way via a turn expansion. He uses another conversation to identify an “apokoinou construction” in which a syntactic constituent is integrated prosodically and syntactically with two different clauses, one preceding and one following like “they inject this...catalyst/ / catalyst they call it” in the conversation. This construction involves a shift in footing, as in a TV interviewer shifting from addressing a guest to addressing the public audience. The article continues with excerpts where interlocutors might not identify the referent of an expression used, leading to a speaker expanding their turn via apposition and expansion. Various excerpts show how speakers use intonation and parenthetical insertions to provide information relevant to identifying referents if a mismatch in encyclopedic knowledge was suspected. Next, Svennevig analyzes excerpts where speakers check if interlocutors know a referent or referring expression (such as by inserting a second metacommunicative question after a first question or by gaze before entering an expansion). The final section of the analysis deals with a new practice wherein speakers expand a turn in progress by inserting a clausal construction before a potentially problematic referring expression, paving the way for an explanation of meaning. Multiple examples from excerpts show how this strategy allows for delayed self-repairs where beginnings are not recycled but rather signal referent identification. These examples demonstrate how speakers can simultaneously perform conversational actions like answering questions while checking for understanding within expanded turns. The article then concludes with a discussion of these preemptive techniques used as part of recipient design in conversation as they provide answers to questions in advance. 

LL Recipe Comparison:

This article reminds me of the recipe for Prosciutto-Chicken Pasta:

Much as this article discusses how people preempt trouble in conversation about references, this recipe preempts any demands you might have for delicious flavor and blended tastes! Svennevig identifies how people insert existential clauses to check if others understand their references, and this recipe’s use of broccoli, chicken, and linguine will check all your savory boxes as you check out this dish. Good Cooking!

MWV 4/2/18

[nylanguageworkshop]

Workshop Monday Nov. 5th: Justin Bledin on As Ifs

Our speaker next week will be our own Justin Bledin, who is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins. Justin will give a talk called ‘As Ifs’:

In this talk, I continue my investigations into quirky, understudied "if" constructions by taking up the case of English "as if". Part of the challenge here is that "as if" is extremely productive, appearing in a range of syntactic environments, and each of its different uses raises its own interpretive puzzles. Four core uses are illustrated in (1)-(4):

(1) Manner use: Pedro danced as if he were possessed by demons.

(2) Perceptual resemblance report: It tastes as if there were an angel peeing on my tongue. (Dutch compliment to the chef)

(3) Root sarcastic use: (Opening inbox) As if I have time to answer all these emails!

(4) Clueless use: (Gross guy makes an advance) Cher: Ugh, as if!

Starting with manner and related modification uses, I analyze "as if"-adjuncts as denoting hypothetical comparative properties of eventualities (building on Davidson 1967, Parsons 1990, Landman 2000, and most directly on the event semantic LF architecture of Beck & von Stechow 2015). The manner report (1), for instance, conveys that there is an event of Pedro dancing that resembles in respect of its manner his dancing in the most stereotypical counterfactual scenarios in which he was possessed by demons. I then argue that this analysis can be carried over to the "as if"-complements of perceptual resemblance reports (PRRs), offering a welcome alternative to philosophically suspect analyses of PRRs in the copy raising literature (Landau 2011; Asudeh & Toivonen 2012) while fitting nicely with contemporary event-semantic analyses of psychological reports in general (Hacquard 2006, 2010; Kratzer 2006; Moulton 2009; Rawlins 2013; Moltmann 2017).

Time permitting, I'll then turn to the root sarcastic and Clueless uses, where the main puzzle is to explain their function as denials of the clause embedded under "as if". Drawing on historical corpus-based work by Brinton (2014) and others, I propose that this denying function is the result of a process of conventionalization whereby scalar implicatures present in multi-clausal uses of "as if" (manner uses, PRRs, etc.) have been lexicalized over time.

The workshop will take place on Monday, November 5th at 6:30 in room 302 of NYU's philosophy building (5 Washington Place).

[linguistlist-blog]

Confs: Clausal Complementation Across Categories

Invited Speakers: Nikos Angelopoulos (CNRS) Johanna Benz (UPenn) Kajsa Djärv (Edinburgh) Kalle Müller (CNRS) This workshop focuses on the relationship between clause-embedding attitude predicates and the clauses with which they combine, with special attention paid to how the syntax and semantics of clausal embedding interacts with either the category of the predicate (i.e. as a verb, noun, or adjective) or of the clause (i.e. as nominalized, nonfinite, etc.). Discussion of these topics wi http://dlvr.it/THQwH7

[synsemuca]

Presentation: Monday, May 13 - Nikos Angelopoulos (UniCA) “On clausal complementation (again!)”

Abstract: Recent literature argues that elements such as English that introducing a declarative embedded clause should be treated as Ds (Manzini and Savoia 2007, Kayne 2010, Roussou 2010, 2019 i.a.) rather than Cs (Bresnan 1972, Chomsky 1986 i.a.). This is reinforced by the nominal use of these elements elsewhere, such as the use of that as a demonstrative. This literature has yet to show, however, why the embedded clauses introduced by these elements do not have the distribution of DPs, as has been observed since Emonds (1970). Building on this literature, this paper introduces a novel structure, treating such elements as Ds instead of Cs, with D-heads having more intricate selectional requirements than traditionally assigned to Cs. They not only select a clausal complement but also the root of the verb or noun with which they are combined. The foundation for this proposal is grounded in new generalizations derived from the distribution of finite declarative embedded clauses introduced by oti and pu in Greek. I demonstrate that these clauses exhibit DP-like behavior only in some contexts. I argue that this restriction does not undermine the treatment of these clauses as DPs. Instead, it is related to the root’s need for categorization, a process feasible in certain syntactic positions but not in others. Besides accounting for the distribution of oti- and pu-clauses, the proposed analysis also supports a number of theoretical insights, including that (a) internal arguments are introduced by higher event-related heads rather than the lexical verb (Borer 2005, Merchant 2019 i.a.), (b) nouns do not take clauses as complements (Arsenijevic 2009, Bondarenko 2022, Kayne 2009, Moulton 2009, 2014 i.a.) and (c) embedded´ clauses are interpreted either as sets of situations (Bondarenko 2022, Moltmann 2021b) or sets of individuals with propositional content (Elliott 2020, Kratzer 2006, Moltmann 1989, 2013a,b Moulton 2009, 2015 i.a.), (d) displacement in attitude and speech reports arises from projections of the embedded clause’s left periphery (Bogal-Allbritten 2016, Kratzer 2006 i.a.). Lastly, the proposed analysis offers insights into the internal structure of nominalized clauses, and provides remarks on how to capture the use of elements such as pu in different contexts.

The workshop will take place from 4pm to 6pm (CEST) over Zoom.

[linguistlist-blog]

TOC, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory Vol. 40, No. 4 (2023)

ICYMI: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09532-z Title: Clausal embedding in Washo: Complementation vs. modification (OA) Author(s): Bochnak, M.R., Hanink, E.A. pages: 979-1022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09527-w Title: Adverbial -s as last resort (OA) Author(s): Corver, N. pages: 1023-1073 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09530-1 Title: The lexical core of a complex functional affix: Russian baby diminutive -onok Author(s): Gouskova, M., Bobaljik, J.D. pages: 1075-1115 DOI: http://dlvr.it/Sr1SmV

[linguistlist-blog]

TOC, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory Vol. 40, No. 4 (2023)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09532-z Title: Clausal embedding in Washo: Complementation vs. modification (OA) Author(s): Bochnak, M.R., Hanink, E.A. pages: 979-1022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09527-w Title: Adverbial -s as last resort (OA) Author(s): Corver, N. pages: 1023-1073 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09530-1 Title: The lexical core of a complex functional affix: Russian baby diminutive -onok Author(s): Gouskova, M., Bobaljik, J.D. pages: 1075-1115 DOI: http://dlvr.it/SqyXky

[linguistlist-blog]

Calls: The syntax and semantics of clausal complementation

Call for Papers: The conference welcomes contributions addressing issues and open questions related to the syntax and semantics of clausal complementation: (1) How are finite clausal embeddings (in plain cases and/or in clausal prolepsis) formed and how do they combine with the verb? - Are they merged as TPs first, in which case the complementizer is introduced in the matrix clause (cf. Kayne 2005, Angelopoulos 2019)? Can TPs function as arguments? - Are they always merged as http://dlvr.it/RXw0Y3

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Books: Pronouns in Embedded Contexts at the Syntax-Semantics Interface

This volume presents studies on pronouns in embedded contexts, and offers fundamental insights into this central area of research. Much of the recent research on pronouns has shown that embedded environments, such as clausal complements of attitude predicates, provide a window into the nature of pronouns. Pronouns in such environments not only exhibit familiar distinctions such as that between bound and referential pronouns; if they refer to the attitude holder, they also participate in a broade http://dlvr.it/Pz4CWR