Strong and weak nominal reference in thetic and categorical sentences

2020 ◽  
pp. 156-177
Author(s):  
Meng-Chen Lee
Keyword(s):  
Nominal Reference

scholarly journals Marcello lächelt sein Mastroianni-Lächeln

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-416
Author(s):  
Marc Felfe
Keyword(s):  
Reference Method ◽  
Verbal Activity ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
Semantic Conflicts ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Activity Verb ◽  
Nominal Reference

Abstract Sentences with a cognate object typically consist of an intransitive activity verb, its subject NP and a second NP in the accusative. Its nominal core is typically derived as nomen actionis and/or nomen acti from the verb. Essential questions are: How are cognate objects licensed? What role do they play in verbal activity? Which nouns and which verbs come into question? Can the reading of cognitive objects be predicted as an event or object? In this paper I will propose a constructional grammatical analysis. Different readings of the cognate object as well as the temporal constitution as a telic or atelic situation are explained within the construction by compositional processes. These are essentially analyzed as a transfer of the nominal reference mode to the entire VP. The nominal reference method also results from compositional processes within the NP. An important focus of the analysis is on overrides and adjustments (coercion) in case of semantic conflicts.

Certified Nominal Reference Material

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Nordin ◽  
René Dybkaer ◽  
Urban Forsum ◽  
Xavier Fuentes-Arderiu ◽  
Françoise Pontet
Keyword(s):  
Reference Material ◽  
Nominal Reference

Nominal Reference

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donka Farkas
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Pronominal Reference ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Nominal Reference ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Side

Nominal reference is central to both linguistic semantics and philosophy of language. On the theoretical side, both philosophers and linguists wrestle with the problem of how the link between nominal expressions and their referents is to be characterized, and what formal tools are most appropriate to deal with this issue. The problem is complex because nominal expression come in a large variety of forms, from simple proper names, pronouns, or bare nouns (Jennifer, they, books) to complex expressions involving determiners and various quantifiers (the/every/no/their answer). While the reference of such expressions is varied, their basic syntactic distribution as subjects or objects of various types, for instance, is homogeneous. Important advances in understanding this tension were made with the advent of the work of R. Montague and that of his successors. The problems involved in understanding the relationship between pronouns and their antecedents in discourse have led to another fundamental theoretical development, namely that of dynamic semantics. On the empirical side, issues at the center of both linguistic and philosophical investigations concern how to best characterize the difference between definite and indefinite nominals, and, more generally, how to understand the large variety of determiner types found both within a language and cross-linguistically. These considerations led to refining the definite/indefinite contrast to include fine-grained specificity distinctions that have been shown to be relevant to various morphosyntactic phenomena across the world’s languages. Considerations concerning nominal reference are thus relevant not only to semantics but also to morphology and syntax. Some questions within the domain of nominal reference have grown into rich subfields of inquiry. This is the case with generic reference, the study of pronominal reference, the study of quantifiers, and the study of the semantics of nominal number marking.

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