Hello all, The following may be of interest to some of you. David Beaver (Linguistics, Texas) is speaking on "Definiteness and Determinacy" this Thursday, from 12 pm to 2 pm in the English Faculty, Board Room. The abstract is below.
Best, John David Beaver, The University of Texas at Austin > (Based on joint work with Elizabeth Coppock, University of Gothenburg) > > On Russell's theory of the definite/indefinite distinction, as on most > contemporary theories, articles make an essential contribution to the > meaning of most utterances. The typical absence of explicit marking of > that distinction in some languages, e.g. Russian, Korean, Hindi or > Mandarin, would then appear to be a peculiar lacuna. How come the > absence doesn't hamper the ability of speakers of those language's to > express and distinguish singular and existential propositions? > > This paper distinguishes between definiteness and determinacy. > Definiteness is seen as a morphological category which, in English, > marks a (weak) uniqueness presupposition, while determinacy consists in > denoting an individual. Both definite and indefinite descriptions are > argued to be fundamentally predicative, presupposing uniqueness but not > existence, and to acquire existential import through general > type-shifting operations that apply not only to definites, but also > indefinites and possessives. The type-shifting rules are exactly the > same as those independently motivated for typically article-less > languages, Russian, etc..Thus, on the view I will describe, the issue of > whether a language typically marks definiteness is separated from the > question of how we choose between determinate and indeterminate readings. > > Quite apart from making the existence of languages like Russian seem > unsurprising, the resulting theory explains a range of new data that no > previous theory of definites captures. This data involves interactions > between definites and superlatives, and between definites and exclusives > like "only". On natural assumptions about exclusives, both Russellian > and Strawsonian analyses of definites fail to predict any difference > between (i) and (ii) or between (ii) and (iii) as regards the number of > talks that will be given, while the minimal theory I will describe > correctly predicts that while (i) and (iii) imply one talk, (ii) implies > more than one. > > A) David won't give the talk today. --> exactly one talk. > B) David won't give the only talk today. --> more than one talk > C) Ash won't fall asleep in the only talk today. --> exactly one talk. > > > Note: For those seeking further motivation or details of the formal > proposal, a draft paper is available at > <http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/mViOGEzY/dd_full_paper.pdf>. > Comments are welcome! > _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
