Diversity of intervention effects: Unifying three Mandarin Chinese dou constructions

I propose a novel and principled way to combine Hamblin/Kratzer-Shimoyama style question semantics and Rooth’s focus semantics and show thatit provides a unified semantic account of the seemingly idiosyncratic ordering re-strictions in three Mandarin constructions with the preverbal focus-sensitive particledou, in terms of various intervention effects.

The syntax and semantics of descriptive V-de constructions

This paper tackles the long-standing problem of the phrase structure of the descriptive V-de construction in Mandarin, and proposes a variant of the Primary Predication analysis. I argue that the suffix -de is a nominalizing head that turns the verb to which it attaches into a nominal event argument, which is in turn predicated over by the descriptive adjectival phrase, the primary predicate of the construction. This syntactic analysis allows for a straightforward explanation for the presupposition-focus semantics of this construction based on structured event quantification. In addition, it is shown that previous arguments that go against the Primary Predication hypothesis (including the distribution of the A-not-A form and negation, and the scope relation between an IP-level element and the adjectival phrase) either do not constitute counterevidence or are simply irrelevant. Further support for the proposal is provided that draws on a number of syntactic properties of the descriptive V-de construction and on the distinction between the descriptive adjectival phrase on the one hand and secondary predicates and adverbial adjuncts on the other hand.

Overcoming Empirical Challenges for an Extended Approach to Condition C

Various empirical phenomena have been regarded as problematic for accounts of Condition C, including the behavior of epithets, focus constructions, and sentences where a bound R-expression can be used for the purpose of disambiguation. I argue that these problematic data can be accounted for within the competition-based framework proposed by Safir (2004) , with slight modifications, including the adoption of an explicit focus semantics and of Dubinsky and Hamilton’s (1998) analysis of epithets as antilogophoric pronouns. In particular, I argue that several phenomena claimed to be pragmatic by Schlenker (2005) can be accounted for syntactically.

The grammar of relative measurement

Relative measures such as percent and thirds relate one quantity to another. In several languages, determiner phrases containing relative measures can express two distinct construals: 1) The conservative construal in 'The company hired 55% of the women' considers the ratio of the company hires among all women. 2) The non-conservative construal in 'The company hired 55% women' is instead concerned with the ratio of women among the company hires. Other languages that distinguish the two construals using morphosyntactic means include German, Korean, Serbian, French, Georgian, Italian, and Hebrew. We present a syntactic and semantic analysis for the two construals. We argue that the non-conservative construal involves a different constituency of the measure-DP, and that focus semantics combined with a version of the copy theory of movement accounts for the non-conservative interpretation. Keywords: quantification, measurement, relations, fractions, conservativity, universals, copy theory