Week 9 Flashcards
All determiners take a set denoted by a ___ and do something with it.
___ are similar but different in that they take two sets denoted by two distinct properties and do something with them
property
quantifiers
Does the order of the sets matter?
• A: yes, it does and I can think of an example
• B: no, it doesn’t
• C: I’m sure it does but I can’t think of an example
If yes, give an example
A,
Ex:
o all dogs are animals (can’t say all animals are dogs)
all elephants eat junkfood. draw tree and give semantic types
- head of all elephants: <,t>
- all: <,,t»
- elephants:
- eat junkfood:
- eat: >
- junk-food: e
-quantifiers don’t refer so they cannot be of type __!
e
Joseph likes three elephants.
QPs in an object position
• What is the problem?
• why?
- they can’t be interpreted where they are without changing their meaning
- note that the verb needs a sister of type e but quantifiers do not have the right type
- their type is always <,t> — whether they are in the subject or in the object position
Joseph likes three elephants.
QPs in an object position
-Problem
What is the solution?
- quantifier raising
- solution: movement of the object quantifier
- QPs move to the closest position in which they can be interpreted
How come we do not pronounce the quantifier in front of the sentence as the tree indicates? (After quantifier raising)
• this is because this is so called covert movement, i.e., this is movement that affects how we interpret something but not necessarily how we pronounce something
How come the trace is e when we said that quantifiers cannot be e since they are not referential?
- the trace is e because it is referential: it refers to whatever moved
- in other words, all traces are e because they are referential to their antecedent
- consequently, the type of trace doesn’t tell us anything about the type of the moved element
- it only tells us that the trace refers to something else in the structure
How do we get ambiguity?
two movements
• one to get the object QP to an interpretable position
• one to change the mutual position of the two QPs
Why should the other quantifier move?
-because subjects in English move
• recall the VP-internal hypothesis: subjects start in Spec,VP and move to Spec,TP in order to satisfy the EPP
Do subjects always move?
-almost always but sometimes the EPP may be satisfied by an expletive (it, there)
Everyone in this room speaks two languages.
What are the two readings?
reading I: everyone in this room is such that they speak two languages
• here the subject raised; the order we get is the subject QP > object QP
• everyone > two languages
reading two: there are two languages such that everyone in the room speaks them
• here the subject QP stayed in situ, while the object quantifier raised; thus we get object QP > subject QP
• two languages > everyone
- the ___ quantifier always raises
- the ___ quantifier may or may not raise
object, subject
The intension and the extension of “the tallest building in Toronto” is always the same.
A) no, its not
B) yes, it is but only if evaluated with respect to the actual world
C) yes, always
A
-the intension is always the same (always the tallest building), extension can change (if they build a taller building than it would be a different building)
Extensional contexts.
• we talk about extensional contexts if we evaluate the ______ of a proposition locally
• where locally means with respect to the ___ world, i.e., the world in which the utterance is being uttered and the time in which it is being uttered
Give an example: “the tallest building in Toronto is the CN tower” is true only if…..
-truth-conditions
-actual
“the tallest building in Toronto is the CN tower” is true only if the tallest building in Toronto in the actual world is the CN tower
