Week 6, part 8

Question 1

the formation of plurals contains two steps:

Answer 1

1. individuation function: changes the relevant set into a set of individuals (so called atoms)
   • 2. summation: combines together these individuals to form plurals

Question 2

plural is semantically ____. it individuates but it doesn’t say anything about the number of ___

Answer 2

empty, individuals

Question 3

plural provides the individuation function and the __ of them

Answer 3

sum

Question 4

___ pick up subsets of summations or the summations which have the right number of members (atoms)

Answer 4

numerals

Question 5

mass nouns:

Answer 5

• a bit like plurals but lack the individuation function
• no internal atomic structure
• without the atomic structure cannot be targeted by any partial function (numerals, a, singular the etc.)

Question 6

NPs – predicates; don’t ___
•DPs - ___
• D - brings in ___
• determiners: ___ of DP

Answer 6

• refer
• refer
• individuation
• specifier

Question 7

What is the intension of “the Czech teacher of semantics”?
A)IK
B) the person of the Czech descent who teaches 3II3 at McMaster University
C) any unique individual such that the individual is of the Czech descent and is a teacher of semantics

Answer 7

C

Question 8

rigid designators: we could model proper names as having intensions but…

Answer 8

but then their extension would be the same in any possible world we might consider

Question 9

referential reading vs. attributive reading

Answer 9

• attributive reading: we don’t know the extension

- referential reading: we know the extension

Question 10

What grammatical categories refer?

Answer 10

-proper names, definite NPs and pronouns

Question 11

Pronouns refer through…

Answer 11

-context, semantics and syntax

Question 12

Only Bruno loves his oatmeal. can you detect any ambiguity?

Answer 12

-Fred doesn’t like his own oatmeal or that Fred doesn’t like Bruno’s oatmeal

Question 13

Focus:

Answer 13

• it puts emphasis on something
• always saying more than the literal semantic meaning of the sentence
• forces you to understand the sentence in terms of additional information (other than literal meaning)
-focus also tells you about its negative counterparts
- it does something similar to movement
• word order according to focus

Question 14

QUESTION 5
Everyone in this room speaks two languages
• A:This sentence is ambiguous but only one of its reading is true for this room
• B:This sentences is ambiguous and all readings are true for this room
• C: this sentence is not ambiguous and it’s false
• D: this sentence is not ambiguous and it’s true

Answer 14

A
-everyone in Canada speaks two languages (everyone learns French)
-ambiguity: you either have two fixed languages or everyone speaking two different languages
reading two: true only if everyone speaks same two languages