Class Formal semantics and lexical semantics, prof. B. Partee, Spring semester 2013
Ekaterina Vostrikova
Russian indefinites and Q-particles.
1. Lexical semantics and formal semantics
One of the questions for lexical semantics: should the process of semantic analysis go beyond the word boarder?
Russian indefinites series:
Кто/что/какой-либо, кто/что/какой-нибудь, кто/что/какой-то On the one hand, «кто», «что», «какой» -- are WH question words. On the other, «либо» occur in other context in Russian, such as: 1. Yes-no questions Подарил ли Ваня цветы Алине? 2. focus in yes-no Ваня ли подарил цветы Алине? Алине ли подарил цветы Ваня? 3. disjunction Либо Ваня подарил цветы Алине, либо Петя То ли Ваня подарил цветы Алине, то ли Петя 4. Alternative questions Ваня подарил цветы Алине или Петя?
This pattern is can be found in different languages, totally unrelated to Russian.
In Malayalam (India) oo appears in yes/no- and alternative-questions, disjunctions, and indefinites. In Japanese the particle ka appears in interrogatives, disjunctions, indefinites. In Sinhala (Sri Lanka), the particle hari is employed in non-interrogative disjunction and indefinite pronouns; the particle de appears in all interrogatives (wh, yes/no, alternative) and in the formation of indefinite pronouns.
2. Building “кто-нибудь”, “кто-либо”, “кто-то” compositionally.
Most of the proposals for semantic analysis of wh-based indefinites relay on Hamblin’s formalization of the semantics of wh-interrogatives. “Who” and “what” can substitute proper names in a sentence, for example:
(2) Кто прочитал “Войну и мир”? (3) Что Петя прочитал?
Hamblin proposed to treat “who” as denoting the set of individuals {John, Bill, Mary, Kim}. The denotation of the question (in some possible world and pragmatic context) “Who read “War and Peace”?” can be represented as the following set of propositions:
{John read “War and Peace”, Mary read “War and Peace”, Bill read “War and Peace”, Kim read “War and Peace”}
“Нибудь”, “либо”, “то”- particles can be analyzed as variables over choice functions.
A choice function f takes a set and returns a member of that set. A possible illustration of several choice functions:
(4)
f({Dave, John, Larry, Phil}) = Larry
g({the Bible, the phonebook, LSLT }) = the Bible h({Amherst, Boston, Natick, Worcester}) = Worcester
Choice functions and Hamblin semantics for wh-words are meant to be together.
A choice function applies to the set denoted by a wh-word and returns one of its members. (5) [[кто]]g = {x ∈ De : x ∈ human} (6) [[ кто то1]]g = [[ то1 ]] g ([[ кто ]]g ) = [[то1]] g ({x ∈ De : x ∈ human})= g(1) ({x ∈ De : x ∈ human})= f ({Вася, Петя, Илья, Наташа})
relative to the variable assignment g, the semantic value of the “кто-то” is the choice function that g assigns to the index ‘1’, taking as argument the set of all human individual.
An existential operator over choice functions can be inserted via a rule of existential closure: (7) [[Я что-то увидел]]g = λw. ∃f. I saw [f ({x∈ De: x ∉ human})] in w.
In a particular world w, this proposition is true iff there is some choice function f such that f applied to the set of nonhuman things yields an entity that the speaker saw in w.
3. Choice functions: what are they good for?
It was noticed that indefinites can take scope out of syntactic islands. (8) If a relative of mine dies, I will inherit the house.
There is a reading of this sentence according to which we are talking about some particular relative of mine or a particular group of relatives.
Even if we can move “three relatives” out of the island created by “if”, we are not getting the right reading. Instead we will get the following:
(9’) There are 3 relatives of mine such that if one of them dies, I will inherit a house.
We can avoid this difficulty by introducing a choice function variable and an existential closure: (10) If three relatives of mine die, I will inherit a house.
∃f [if f (three relatives of mine) die, then I will inherit a house]
There is a choice-function such that if the particular group chosen by the function from the set of groups containing exactly three relatives of mine is such that all members die, then I will inherit a house.
4. The distribution of «какой-нибудь», «какой-либо» in Russian. I will focus mainly of “нибудь” – items here.
1. Both «какой-нибудь» и «какой-либо» cannot be used in a positive episodic sentence. (11) #Маша увидела какого-нибудь мальчика
(12) #Маша увидела какого-либо мальчика
2. They can never get the widest scope in a sentence; they “want” to be under the scope of some operator.
(13) Каждая девочка обратила внимание на какого-нибудь/либо мальчика There is no reading (13’):
(13’) Есть один мальчик и на него обратила внимание каждая девочка But as soon as turn (13) into a question, we can get such reading:
(14) На какого-нибудь мальчика обратила внимание каждая девочка?
We added another operator and now “какой-нибудь” can take a wide scope with respect to “каждая девочка”.
«нибудь»-type indefinites are good with modals, universal quantifier «каждый», sentential quantifiers «обычно», «всегда», imperatives, conditionals, future. We can add sentences with habitual meaning to this list.
Some possible explanations of the data.
Proposal 1(Y. Yanovich 2005): что-нибудь must always appear under the scope of some variable binding operator.
This is because «нибудь» is skolemized choice functional variable. Skolemized choice functions are functions that have both set and individual arguments [[нибудь]] = λ P λ x. f (x, P). According to this proposal the individual variable of нибудь must be bound.
This approach has several empirical problems:
1) The use of нибудь-items in the sentences with past tense is as problematic as any other positive episodic sentence
(5) Катя принесла какую-нибудь шляпу But is fine with the future tense:
(15) Катя принесет какую-нибудь шляпу
If a quantifier over times can bind an argument of нибудь, there should be no difference between the past and future tense.
2) The prediction of this approach is that нибудь can never be licensed by negation and disjunction, because those operators do not bind any variables.
Is this claim correct? I think «нибудь» is totally fine in a context of disjunction: (16) Либо кто-нибудь вернулся домой, либо мы забыли выключить свет It seems that negation in general cannot legitimize the use of «нибудь»:
(17) Вася не пригласил *какую-нибудь / никакую девочку на день рождения
However I will adopt the proposal of A. Pereltsvaig (2000)–либо and нибудь do not occur with negation in the same clause, because ни- items have priority over them as “they have more highly specified lexical entries”.
I also think that the claim that “нибудь” can never be licensed in the context of negation is too strong:
(18) У Вани нет сколь-нибудь серьезных сомнений в том, что Илья идиот (19) Коммисия не выявила сколь-нибудь значимых нарушений в работе фирмы
We can suppose that сколь-нибудь can be used in these cases, because there is no adequate ни-form, which is supposed to be “нинасколько”.
Some examples of constituent negation with “нибудь” can also be found: (20) Вася выбрал меня, а не какую-нибудь другую девочку
(21) Он у меня не какой-нибудь чудик, с идиотом я и жить бы не стала.
(22) ведь я все-таки не злодей какой-нибудь и не дурак ― свое место знаю. [И. C. Тургенев. Нахлебник (1848)
respect to which they can take narrow scope.
This approach also faces some empirical complications. Here are some examples of the sentences with “нибудь” and no operator whatsoever:
(23) Умирающий вряд ли хорошо понимал что-нибудь (24) Я рылся во всех библиотеках и искалчто-нибудь об этом императоре (25)Динка мучительно и тревожно искала в чем- нибудь утешения для этого музыканта без имени, (26) Внизу Альбина искала глазами кого-нибудь, кто объяснил бы случившееся. (27) Мало кто из них понимает что-нибудь в формальной семантике (28) Он полностью отвергал возможность каких-нибудь мрачных событий. (29) Я тщетно ждала от него какого-нибудь объяснения
We can see that the intensional verbs allow нибудь-items as their arguments
This is problematic for both proposal 1 and 2, because both of them demand that нибудь-items should appear under the scope of some operator.
Proposal 3 Giannakidou (2008), Paducheva (2007) Nonveridicality approach. This approach seems to be the most promising.
Nonveridicality Giannakidou (2008):
“1) the verb see is veridical because if I see a unicorn is true, then it must be true that a unicorn exists, but the verb “искать” is not.
2) A propositional operator F is veridical iff Fp entails or presupposes that p is true in some individual’s epistemic model ME(x); otherwise F is nonveridical.
3) A determiner δ is veridical iff δ NP V, uttered in c, presupposes that ∃x NP (x) in c; otherwise, δ is nonveridical.”
Nonveridicality characterizes the meaning of functions that do not
ensure truth, e.g. negation, disjunction, volitional verbs want, suggest, insist, modal verbs and adverbials, imperatives, questions, habituals, and the subjunctive.
This approach unlike the 2 considered above correctly predicts that нибудь is fine after “без” (30) За поворотом реки открылась новая даль, но безкакой-нибудь новизны.
1) Sometimes нибудь is fine in veridical contexts: (31)Я поняла, что вы что-нибудь разбили (implies “Вычто-нибудьразбили”) (32) Так я и знала: что-нибудь случилось. (implies “что-нибудь случилось” (33) Я так и знала, что ты что-нибудь забыл (34)Наташа, из всего семейства более всех одаренная способностью чувствовать оттенки ин тонаций, взглядов и выражений лиц, с начала обеда насторожила уши и знала,что что -нибудь есть между ее отцом и Анной Михайловной и
что-нибудь касающееся брата, и что Анна Михайловна приготавливает. (L.Tolstoy “War and Peace”)
(2) I would like to bring some examples that undermine the thesis that “нибудь” can never be used in a positive episodic sentence.
(35) «Вы здесь не одни, ― сказал я французу, ― я видел вчеракого -нибудь из ваших, тоже в китайском платье, с золотым наперсным крестом… [И. А. Гончаров. Фрегат «Паллада» (1855)] (36) Всё одни и те же ступеньки. Я на самой низшей, а ты вверху, где-нибудь на тринадцатой. (37) Он стоял в каких-нибудь трех метрах от меня (38) Эти пьесы, написанные в какие-нибудь три месяца, не были перлами творения (39) Ещё какие-нибудь два-три месяца небольшого голодания ― и у Акакия Акакиевича набралось точно около восьм идесяти рублей. [Н. В. Гоголь. Шинель (1842)] (40) Деревня носила помещичье название «Бабонегово», какой -нибудьдурак помещик так назвал. (41) Алешка, Алешка, каково! Ах ты казуист! Это он был у иезуитов где-нибудь, Иван [Достоевский “Братья Карамазовы”] (42) Он сейчас сидит один где-нибудь в Мельбурне и тихо в помыслах подкапывается.
What those examples seem to suggest is that the prohibition of нибудь- items in positive episodic sentences is not very strict and can be violated if the context is appropriate. It could be that the limitations of the use of нибудь are pragmatic in the nature.
One possible explanation of the fact that нибудь – items in general are bad in positive episodic sentences is offered by Domain widening approach (Chierchia, 2006).
According to this approach “Какой-нибудь CN” means the same as “какой-то CN” with the additional semantic or pragmatic characteristics of widening, strengthening
“The intuition behind domain widening is that “any”’s well-formedness depends on figuring out the right domain—in this sense, any is just like any other quantifier. Any requires that its domain must be extended (widened) along some contextual dimension. This sets any apart from other quantifiers where typically the domain must be narrowed down”. (Chierchia, 2006)
() a. *There is any student D+ (in that building) b. There isn’t any student D+ (in that building)
In a positive context, like (2a), widening the domain of an existential leads to a statement which is weaker (i.e., less informative) than what we would obtain with a plain indefinite.
References:
Cable, Seth 2010. The Grammar of Q: Q-Particles, Wh-Movement, and Pied-Piping Chierchia, Gennaro. 2006. Broaden your views. Implicatures of domain widening and the “Logicality” of language. Linguistic Inquiry 37: 535-590
Hamblin, C. L. (1973) Questions in Montague English. Foundations of Language 10, 41-53.
Kratzer, Angelika, and Shimoyama, Junko. 2002. Indeterminate Phrases: the View from Japanese. In The Proceedings of the Third Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, 1-25. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.
Pereltsvaig, Asya. 2000. Monotonicity-based versus veridicality based approaches to negative Polarity: evidence from Russian. Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, ed. by Tracy Halloway King, and Anna Sekerina, 328-346. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publishers Slade, Benjamin, 2011, Dissertation: Formal and philological inquiries into the nature of interrogatives,indefinites, disjunction, and focus in Sinhala and other languages
von Fintel, Kai, 1998. The semantics and pragmatics of quantifier domains. Vilem Mathesius Lectures. Prague. March 1998.
Yanovich, Igor. 2005. Semantika neopredelennyx imennyx grupp, OTiPL, Moscow State University: Diplomanaja Rabota (Undergraduate Thesis).
https://udrive.oit.umass.edu/partee/Semantics_Readings/yanovich_diplom.pdf .
Yanovich, Igor. 2006. Choice-functional series of indefinites and Hamblin semantics. In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 15, eds. Effi Georgala and Jonathan Howell, 309-326. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Linguistics Publications.
https://udrive.oit.umass.edu/partee/Semantics_Readings/yanovich_SALT_paper_final.pdf . >
