We present an EEG-based experimental investigation on additive dis course continuations of factiv... more We present an EEG-based experimental investigation on additive dis course continuations of factive sentences according to a pattern: "Paul knows that Peter takes the bus. Louis too takes/knows . . ." . We want to determine whether reference to the main content (with "knows") or to the presupposition (with "takes") elicits a different brain response. We conclude from the data that there is no trace of electrical waveforms usually associated with deviation from a norm or reprocessing, although there is an observable moderate contrast in the 250-400 ms time window at frontal sites, which is in need of controlled replication to be properly interpreted.
In this paper, I present an analysis of the French determinerplusieurs(‘several’). I show that on... more In this paper, I present an analysis of the French determinerplusieurs(‘several’). I show that one can account for its two opposite properties, as described in Bacha (1997) and Gondret (1976), namely the fact that (i)plusieurscannot refer to large quantities and (ii) it is “augmentative” (Gondret) or has a positive argumentative orientation in Ducrot’s sense (Bacha), by hypothesizing thatplusieursislayered. This means that it conveys an asserted piece of information as well as an implicature, likepeu(‘little’),un peu(‘a little’),presque(‘almost’),à peine(‘barely’, ‘hardly’) and others. This leads me, in particular, to make the notion of argumentative orientation more precise and to compareplusieursandquelques(‘some’, ‘a few’), which is a ‘flat’ (non-stratified) determiner.
In this section, we review the properties of un N quelconque (UQ1). This phrase is fine in "modal... more In this section, we review the properties of un N quelconque (UQ1). This phrase is fine in "modal" contexts, that is, sentences expressing probability (1a,b), possibility (1c), obligation (1d), permission (1e), command/suggestion (1f), or habitual sentences (1g). (1) a. Marie a probablement loué une voiture quelconque 'Mary probably rented some car' b. Marie a dû louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary must have rented some car or other' c. Marie a pu louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary was able to rent some car' d. Marie doit louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary has to rent some sort of car' e. Marie a le droit de louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary is allowed to rent some sort of car' f. Loue une voiture quelconque 'Rent some car or other' g. Quand elle était en vacances, Marie louait habituellement une voiture quelconque 'On holiday, Mary usually rented some car' In episodic non-modal sentences, UQ1 is appropriate when the sentence is compatible with the assumption that the speaker cannot identify the reference of UQ1. (2b) is anomalous, because, under normal circumstances, it implies that the speaker is able to identify the referent. (2) a. Susanne a épousé un copain de fac quelconque, que je ne connais pas 'Susan married some university friend, whom I don't know' b. J'ai rencontré ¡ un ami quelconque 'I met some friend' UQ1 is not always appropriate with non-specific NPs. (3) a. Pour mon anniversaire, je voudrais une lampe de bureau ¡ quelconque 'For my birthday, I would like some desk lamp' b. Il me faut un livre quelconque sur les types récursifs 'I need some book on recursive types' In generic sentences, UQ1 is not appropriate when it occurs as restriction of a generic operator. In (4c), UQ1 is in the scope. (4) a. Un animal doit être soigneusement nourri 'An animal must be fed with care' b. Un animal ¡ quelconque doit être soigneusement nourri 'Some animal must be fed with care' c. Un chat doit avoir un jouet quelconque 'A cat must have some sort of a toy'
Dans la vaste littérature sur l/aspect, la notion de télicité occupe une place privilégiée. Intui... more Dans la vaste littérature sur l/aspect, la notion de télicité occupe une place privilégiée. Intuitivement, la télicité est souvent présentée comme le fait qu/un procès comporte en lui même l/indication de sa propre fin. Ainsi, dans (1) et (2), les deux procès sont bornés ...
In a specific context, both sentences seem plausible, e.g. a teacher trying to construct two equa... more In a specific context, both sentences seem plausible, e.g. a teacher trying to construct two equally difficult exams for two groups of students 1 a. The Friday exam was difficult, but less difficult than the Tuesday exam. 1 b. # The Friday exam was difficult, but more difficult than the Tuesday exam. Experiment-Offline Results Linear mixed effect models with maximal random effect structure were fitted to the data using the lmer package in R with the following syntax: Judgment ~ group*cond +(cond|Subj) + (group*cond|Item) Effects of condition and group were confirmed by likelihood-ratio tests
In spite of alleged differences in purpose, descriptive and computational linguistics share many ... more In spite of alleged differences in purpose, descriptive and computational linguistics share many problems, due to the fact that any precise study on language needs some form of knowledge representation. This constraint is mostly apparent when interpretation of sentences takes into account elements of the so-called "context". The parametrization of context, i.e. the explicit listing of features relevant to some interpretation task, is difficult because it requires flexible formal structures for understanding or simulating inferential behaviour, as well as a large amount of information about conventional structures in the given language. This paper aims at illustrating major difficulties in these two fields, in relation with the necessity of a contextual approach. It offers a (clearly partial) enumeration of open problems in the representation of commonsense knowledge and language-dependent structures, with some attempt to delineate future solutions.
On admet couramment qu'un nom comme livre a plusieurs «facettes» de sens, par exemple qu... more On admet couramment qu'un nom comme livre a plusieurs «facettes» de sens, par exemple qu'il peut évoquer à la fois un objet matériel et un objet qui contient de l'information, sans qu'il y ait antagonisme ou tension entre les deux (Cruse 1995, 1999, 2003a). Selon Cruse, ...
Current proposals that characterise the widening effect of F(ree) C(hoice) I(tems) as an implicat... more Current proposals that characterise the widening effect of F(ree) C(hoice) I(tems) as an implicature all require additional stipulations and leave a number of observations unexplained. We propose instead that free choiceness results from ensuring that every member of the restriction is equivalent to every other member with respect to the scope. Whereas this general profile is subject to lexical variations within and across languages, it accounts for the family resemblance of FCI.
This paper investigates the semantic properties of the French determiner quelque. It is shown tha... more This paper investigates the semantic properties of the French determiner quelque. It is shown that quelque conveys inferential evidentiality, that is, it selects interpre- tations in which the speaker infers the proposition conveyed by the sentence that hosts the determiner. This accounts for several other properties, for instance the fact that quelque is anti-specific and does not combine freely with
Revue De Semantique Et De Pragmatique, Jul 1, 2002
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Les abstractions sont-elles des règles ? Le cas de avec.
We present an EEG-based experimental investigation on additive dis course continuations of factiv... more We present an EEG-based experimental investigation on additive dis course continuations of factive sentences according to a pattern: "Paul knows that Peter takes the bus. Louis too takes/knows . . ." . We want to determine whether reference to the main content (with "knows") or to the presupposition (with "takes") elicits a different brain response. We conclude from the data that there is no trace of electrical waveforms usually associated with deviation from a norm or reprocessing, although there is an observable moderate contrast in the 250-400 ms time window at frontal sites, which is in need of controlled replication to be properly interpreted.
In this paper, I present an analysis of the French determinerplusieurs(‘several’). I show that on... more In this paper, I present an analysis of the French determinerplusieurs(‘several’). I show that one can account for its two opposite properties, as described in Bacha (1997) and Gondret (1976), namely the fact that (i)plusieurscannot refer to large quantities and (ii) it is “augmentative” (Gondret) or has a positive argumentative orientation in Ducrot’s sense (Bacha), by hypothesizing thatplusieursislayered. This means that it conveys an asserted piece of information as well as an implicature, likepeu(‘little’),un peu(‘a little’),presque(‘almost’),à peine(‘barely’, ‘hardly’) and others. This leads me, in particular, to make the notion of argumentative orientation more precise and to compareplusieursandquelques(‘some’, ‘a few’), which is a ‘flat’ (non-stratified) determiner.
In this section, we review the properties of un N quelconque (UQ1). This phrase is fine in "modal... more In this section, we review the properties of un N quelconque (UQ1). This phrase is fine in "modal" contexts, that is, sentences expressing probability (1a,b), possibility (1c), obligation (1d), permission (1e), command/suggestion (1f), or habitual sentences (1g). (1) a. Marie a probablement loué une voiture quelconque 'Mary probably rented some car' b. Marie a dû louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary must have rented some car or other' c. Marie a pu louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary was able to rent some car' d. Marie doit louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary has to rent some sort of car' e. Marie a le droit de louer une voiture quelconque 'Mary is allowed to rent some sort of car' f. Loue une voiture quelconque 'Rent some car or other' g. Quand elle était en vacances, Marie louait habituellement une voiture quelconque 'On holiday, Mary usually rented some car' In episodic non-modal sentences, UQ1 is appropriate when the sentence is compatible with the assumption that the speaker cannot identify the reference of UQ1. (2b) is anomalous, because, under normal circumstances, it implies that the speaker is able to identify the referent. (2) a. Susanne a épousé un copain de fac quelconque, que je ne connais pas 'Susan married some university friend, whom I don't know' b. J'ai rencontré ¡ un ami quelconque 'I met some friend' UQ1 is not always appropriate with non-specific NPs. (3) a. Pour mon anniversaire, je voudrais une lampe de bureau ¡ quelconque 'For my birthday, I would like some desk lamp' b. Il me faut un livre quelconque sur les types récursifs 'I need some book on recursive types' In generic sentences, UQ1 is not appropriate when it occurs as restriction of a generic operator. In (4c), UQ1 is in the scope. (4) a. Un animal doit être soigneusement nourri 'An animal must be fed with care' b. Un animal ¡ quelconque doit être soigneusement nourri 'Some animal must be fed with care' c. Un chat doit avoir un jouet quelconque 'A cat must have some sort of a toy'
Dans la vaste littérature sur l/aspect, la notion de télicité occupe une place privilégiée. Intui... more Dans la vaste littérature sur l/aspect, la notion de télicité occupe une place privilégiée. Intuitivement, la télicité est souvent présentée comme le fait qu/un procès comporte en lui même l/indication de sa propre fin. Ainsi, dans (1) et (2), les deux procès sont bornés ...
In a specific context, both sentences seem plausible, e.g. a teacher trying to construct two equa... more In a specific context, both sentences seem plausible, e.g. a teacher trying to construct two equally difficult exams for two groups of students 1 a. The Friday exam was difficult, but less difficult than the Tuesday exam. 1 b. # The Friday exam was difficult, but more difficult than the Tuesday exam. Experiment-Offline Results Linear mixed effect models with maximal random effect structure were fitted to the data using the lmer package in R with the following syntax: Judgment ~ group*cond +(cond|Subj) + (group*cond|Item) Effects of condition and group were confirmed by likelihood-ratio tests
In spite of alleged differences in purpose, descriptive and computational linguistics share many ... more In spite of alleged differences in purpose, descriptive and computational linguistics share many problems, due to the fact that any precise study on language needs some form of knowledge representation. This constraint is mostly apparent when interpretation of sentences takes into account elements of the so-called "context". The parametrization of context, i.e. the explicit listing of features relevant to some interpretation task, is difficult because it requires flexible formal structures for understanding or simulating inferential behaviour, as well as a large amount of information about conventional structures in the given language. This paper aims at illustrating major difficulties in these two fields, in relation with the necessity of a contextual approach. It offers a (clearly partial) enumeration of open problems in the representation of commonsense knowledge and language-dependent structures, with some attempt to delineate future solutions.
On admet couramment qu'un nom comme livre a plusieurs «facettes» de sens, par exemple qu... more On admet couramment qu'un nom comme livre a plusieurs «facettes» de sens, par exemple qu'il peut évoquer à la fois un objet matériel et un objet qui contient de l'information, sans qu'il y ait antagonisme ou tension entre les deux (Cruse 1995, 1999, 2003a). Selon Cruse, ...
Current proposals that characterise the widening effect of F(ree) C(hoice) I(tems) as an implicat... more Current proposals that characterise the widening effect of F(ree) C(hoice) I(tems) as an implicature all require additional stipulations and leave a number of observations unexplained. We propose instead that free choiceness results from ensuring that every member of the restriction is equivalent to every other member with respect to the scope. Whereas this general profile is subject to lexical variations within and across languages, it accounts for the family resemblance of FCI.
This paper investigates the semantic properties of the French determiner quelque. It is shown tha... more This paper investigates the semantic properties of the French determiner quelque. It is shown that quelque conveys inferential evidentiality, that is, it selects interpre- tations in which the speaker infers the proposition conveyed by the sentence that hosts the determiner. This accounts for several other properties, for instance the fact that quelque is anti-specific and does not combine freely with
Revue De Semantique Et De Pragmatique, Jul 1, 2002
HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific re... more HAL is a multidisciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Les abstractions sont-elles des règles ? Le cas de avec.
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