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Item Open Access Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 13. Vol. I(2009) Riester, Arndt; Solstad, Torgrim (eds.)This is Volume I of the proceedings of the 13th installment of the annual conference "Sinn und Bedeutung 13" at the University of Stuttgart.Item Open Access SinSpeC 01(2008)Volume 1 of the Working Papers of the SFB732 "Incremental Specification in Context" (SinSpeC)Item Open Access Sub-lexical investigations: German particles, prefixes and prepositions(2013) Roßdeutscher, AntjeThe papers investigate constructions with P(repositional) elements in German. It aims at a comprehensive theory of the syntax-semantics interface for the different verbal constructions in German, including verb plus prepostional phrase, (separable) particle verbs, and (inseparable) prefix verbs. The constructions are given syntactic representations following minimalist principles as known from \textit{Distributive Morphology} (DM) according to which a single syntactic engine drives formation of both words and phrases. Among the syntactic principles the Split-P hypothesis plays a central role. A crucial feature of the approach is that the syntactic structures are used as input to the computation of semantic representations according to principles of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT). Several challenges that present themselves for a compositional theory of word- and phrase- formation with P-elements in German are accounted for in the paper: syntactic separability of verb-particle constructions vs non-separability of prefix-verbs; semantic restrictions in the P-elements to build constructions of the former and the latter type; syntactic alternations w.r.t. the realisation of figure and ground arguments and the semantic basis of these alternations. A particular challenge are the differences in the conceptual and aspectual contribution of the same prepositional root in different syntactic contexts.Item Open Access Event denoting -er nominalizations in German(2008) Schäfer, FlorianAs in other Germanic or Romance languages, -er nominalizations in German typically denote the external argument of the verb they are derived from irrespectively of its specific thematic role. This type of -er nominalizations is totally productive across languages. As observed in the literature, -er nominalizations across languages sometimes denote what looks like the internal argument of the verb they are derived from and one can even find -er nominalizations derived from adjectives, prepositions or nouns. The latter types of -er nominalizations are, however, not fully productive but (to some extent) idiosyncratic. I will show that German has one further type of -er nominalizations which does not denote an entity but an event. It turns out that these event denoting –er nominalizations are restricted to one specific type of predicates, namely semelfactives. Within this class of semelfactives, the derivation of event denoting -er nominalizations turns out to be totally productive. I suggest that the restriction that event denoting –er nominalizations can only be derived from verbs expressing semelfactive events tells us something about the meaning or the selectional restrictions of the derivational morpheme -er.Item Open Access Bare and indefinite NPs in predicative position in French(2008) Mari, Alda; Martin, FabienneThis paper proposes a new analysis of the use of bare nouns vs. indefinite NPs in predicative position in French. We distinguish between predicational sentences (with the bare noun version) and equative sentences (with the indefinite version). We argue that bare nouns ascribe permanent properties to aspects of entities. As for the indefinites, we claim that they exhibit their specific reading and introduce an individual in a new situation, which is identified with the referent of the subject.Item Open Access The division of the causative eventive chain by means of -ment and -age(2008) Uth, MelanieIn this paper I will investigate process and result nominals in -age and –ment, which are derived from verbs participating in the causative/anti-causative-alternation (henceforth labelled “alternating verbs”). First of all, it will be empirically shown that –mentnominals have both the anti-causative reading and the resultant state reading, whereas process nominals in –age focus on the causing process and result nominals in –age only appear in applicative constructions. Ehrich & Rapp (2000) assume that the causative eventive chain consists of a causing process and a change-of-state event that takes the resultant state as its situational argument. Following that, I will conclude from the empirical evidence that –ment nominalizes the change-of-state event, while –age nominalizes the causing process. Furthermore, I will model the relevant –age- and –mentnominals in terms of Lieber’s (2004) conceptual structures and discuss the question whether we may assume that –ment and –age introduce different aspectual operators.Item Open Access Morphological, syntactic and semantic aspects of dispositions(Stuttgart : Universität Stuttgart, SFB, 2016) Martin, Fabienne; Pitteroff, Marcel; Pross, TillmannThis volume gathers a subset of the papers presented at the Workshop on the Morphological, Syntactic and Semantic Aspects of Dispositions held at the University of Stuttgart from June 25 to June 27 2015. The invited speakers were Artemis Alexiadou, Nora Boneh, Elena Castroviejo, Ariel Cohen, Bridget Copley, Hans Kamp, Marika Lekakou, John Maier, Christopher Piñón, Károly Varasdi and Barbara Vetter. Other contributions have been presented by Simona Aimar, Saveria Colonna, Marta Donazzan, Berit Gehrke, Daniel Kodaj, Nick Kroll, Isabelle Roy and Lucia Tovena. While appeals to dispositions have been made in just about every area of linguistics and philosophy, the syntax, semantics and ontology of dispositions is still subject to debate. A first obvious reason why dispositions are hard to deal with in linguistics is that the predominant Neo-Davidsonian account of logical forms is based on the isolated analysis of actual relations between causes and effects, whereas dispositions pertain to potential cause-effect relations, difficult to grasp in traditional syntax/semantic frameworks. Besides, whereas for actual causations, the binary distinction between the roles Agent/Causer and Theme/Patient makes perfect sense, possible cause-effect relations partly escape these distinctions. The instantiation of a disposition in an object is not related to being an Agent or to being a Theme of the disposition. A second obvious difficulty raised by dispositions is due to the versatility of dispositional predicates. Those are commonly used to describe either permanent or temporary properties of individuals, or manifestations of these properties through events, not to mention their other (e.g. epistemic) readings. The goal of the workshop was to subject to critical scrutiny the Neo-Davidsonian foundation of syntax and semantics in the light of the linguistic expression of dispositional causal powers. We aimed to bring together linguists and philosophers interested in contributing to a common point of departure in the analysis of dispositions beyond the Neo-Davidsonian framework. Three central questions emerged as central issues of the workshop: 1. Uncontroversially, dispositions are properties - but what kind of properties are dispositions? 2. What are dispositions properties of? 3. Do the different expressions we find in natural languages differentiate between different types of dispositions? The papers collected in this volume represent the variety of answers that have been provided by the workshop participants to one or more of these questions. Concerning the first question, centered on the nature of dispositions, the paper by Vetter argues that dispositions are irreducible modal properties, and proposes a modal semantics which uses the resources of an ‘anti-Humean’ metaphysics instead of possible worlds. The papers by Boneh and Cohen approach in more detail the specificity of the modal properties that correspond to dispositions. Boneh examines the relation between dispositional and habitual readings. She argues that in bare generic sentences, there is no sound linguistic criteria to set apart dispositional readings from habitual readings. Cohen proposes a classification of dispositions according to whether their argument is a causer or not, and whether they are always, or only sometimes realized. He demonstrates that each such type of disposition is expressed by a distinct linguistic expression. The bearer of dispositions is the subject of the papers of Kroll, Donazzan & Tovena and Cohen. Kroll analyzes events in progress as being the bearers of dispositions. Donazzan and Tovena, like Cohen, highlight the fact that bearers of dispositions are often systems consisting of one or more protagonists situated in an environment. With respect to the linguistic expression of dispositions, Castroviejo & Oltra-Massuet present a case study on the semantics of the Spanish expression ser capaz ‘be capable’, which is carefully compared to its English counterpart. The paper by Alexiadou examines the restrictions on the formation of -able adjectives from object experiencer verbs. She argues that their availability depends not only on their aspectual properties, but also on the Voice system of a language - i.e. dispositional -able formation takes as input a structure involving passive resp. middle Voice. Finally, Roy et. al. consider how grammatical and conceptual knowledge affect children’s and adults’ interpretation of derived -er nominals such as cutter of branches (a phrasal -er nominal) and branch cutter (a compound -er nominal) in English.Item Open Access Disambiguation and reambiguation(2009) Hamm, Fritz; Kamp, Hans; Solstad, Torgrim; Roßdeutscher, Antje (ed.)The papers in this volume developed as part of the two projects "The Role of Lexical Information in the Context of Word-formation, Sentence and Discourse" and the project "Representation of Ambiguities and their Resolution in Context". In the former, a theory of "-ung"-nominalisation in German has been developed. The two papers presented in this volume focus on the second part of the joint enterprise of the two projects, namely on disambiguation of "-ung"-nouns in context. Hamm and Kamp study a proto-typical example, "die Absperrung der Botschaft" "the cordoning-off of the embassy", which is three-way ambiguous. This DP can denote a material object (the fence used for cordoning-off), an event (the process of cordoning-off) or a result state (the embassy being cordoned off). Formally, this three-way ambiguity is represented by an underspecified DRS. The paper contributes a partial answer to the general question which contextual factors are responsible for the (partial) disambiguation of this DP in discourse. The disambiguation process is described on the level of DRT. Building on the results in the first paper, the second paper by Hamm and Solstad focuses on problems that arise in anaphora resolution of pronouns with ambiguous nouns like "die Absperrung der Botschaft" as antecedent. What happens if the selection restriction of the verb in the antecedent sentence and that of the consequent sentence are incompatible? This situation is exemplified in (1): (1) Die Absperrung der Botschaft wurde vorgestern von Demonstranten behindert. Wegen anhaltender Unruhen wird SIE auch heute aufrecht erhalten. "The cordoning-off of the embassy was hampered by protesters the day before yesterday. Due to continuing unrest, it [the state of being cordoned off] is sustained today as well." "Behindern" "to hamper" filters out both the entity-reading and the result state reading of "Absperrung", but the verb "aufrecht erhalten" "to sustain" requires the result state as its argument. Thus, in order for the anaphoric pronoun 'sie' to be resolved successfully, the first sentence should provide a result state which, however, is not available, if the result state reading has been erased. Hamm and Solstad show that the required result state can be reconstructed - even under the assumption that "behindern" erases the result state reading of the first sentence in (1). This is achieved in a process of "reambiguation". Reambiguation involves a non-monotonic inference process. The question arise what triggers this process and what its restrictions are. Hamm and Solstad provide formally precise answers to these questions. Again a combination of UDRT and the event calculus provide the framework where these puzzles can be solved.Item Open Access Stress test for relative clauses(2009) Riester, ArndtA brief overview on the semantic differences between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses is given. Subsequently differences with regard to information status and focus alternatives are presented. I investigate, in a systematic way, which focus (accent) patterns on relative-clause constructions are (im)possible in which contexts and why this is so. In order to account for the infelicity of certain restrictive relative clause constructions a new proposal is made how to derive the contrastive properties of complex definite descriptions (focus phrases) involving relative clauses. The account presented in this paper gives rise to predictions on intonational phonology and sentence processing.Item Open Access Exhaustiveness of Hungarian focus : experimental evidence from Hungarian and German(2009) Onea, EdgarPreverbal focus in Hungarian has been argued to be more exhaustive or exhaustive in a distinguished way as compared to what has been generally called prosodic focus in languages like English or German. In virtually all analysis it has been assumed that the reason for this property of Hungarian focus is related to its immediately preverbal syntactic position. This effect has thus been derived compositionally at the syntax-semantics interface as part of the truth conditional content of the respective sentences. In this paper I present new data from a pilot experiment that suggests that exhaustiveness is not part of the truth conditional content of sentences containing preverbal focus in Hungarian. The data also shows, however, that Hungarian focus is indeed somewhat more exhaustive than prosodic focus in German. Hence there is definitely something to say about exhaustiveness in Hungarian. Finally I present a new empirical puzzle emerging from the experimental data.