From andreas.nolda at CMS.HU-BERLIN.DE Wed Dec 14 07:13:51 2005 From: andreas.nolda at CMS.HU-BERLIN.DE (Andreas Nolda) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 08:13:51 +0100 Subject: Adnominal and adverbial "vermutlich" Message-ID: Hi everybody, on Monday, November 28, I gave a talk on the adnominal and the adverbial of "vermutlich" ('presumable') in German: (1) der vermutliche Kopf der Bande (2) a. Vermutlich die IRÀ hat am Mittwoch zwei Bombenanschläge verübt.     b. Vermutlich hat die IRA am Mittwoch zwei Bòmbenanschläge verübt. In my talk, I argued for the hypothesis that _vermutliche_ in (1) and _vermutlich_ in (2) are *qualifiers*: (3) a. _vermutliche_ in (1) qualifies _der Kopf der Bande_ w.r.t. _der        Kopf_ or     b. _vermutliche_ in (1) qualifies _der Kopf der Bande_ w.r.t. _der        Kopf der Bande_. (4) a. _vermutlich_ in (2 a) qualifies _die IRA hat am Mittwoch zwei        Bombenanschläge verübt_ w.r.t. _die IRA_.     b. _vermutlich_ in (2 b) qualifies _hat die IRA am Mittwoch zwei        Bombenanschläge verübt_ w.r.t. _hat die IRA am Mittwoch zwei        Bombenanschläge verübt_. Thus, (1) is relationally ambiguous. What I am mainly interested in is the semantics of (1) and (2). Although I already profited much from the suggestions made during the discussion period of my talk, any further comments from your part are highly welcome. As to (1), I proposed the following intensional relations as components of (1)'s intermediate syntactic meanings: (5) a. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that, for all x2,        if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2,        then V1 presumes: 'x1 is the head of x2'.     b. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that V1 presumes: for all x2,        if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2,        then 'x1 is the head of x2'. Regarding (2 a) and (2 b), I suggested propositions along the following lines: (6) a. The relation between V and V1 such that there is an x1 such        that        1. 'x1 committed a bomb attack on Wednesday' and        2. V1 presumes that V1 refers by _die IRA_ in V to x1.     b. The relation between V and V1 such that V1 presumes that        'the IRA committed a bomb attack on Wednesday'. As pointed out by Monika Budde and Hans-Heinrich Lieb during the discussion period, the meanings in (5) and (6) suffer from the fact that they presuppose an empty lexical meaning for "vermutlich", which is hardly convincing. Together we constructed a preliminary lexical meaning .vermutlich-adv. for the adverbial "vermutlich", taking the verb meaning .vermuten. as a starting point ("s" stands for states-of-affairs): (7) a. .vermuten. =        the property of being a perception or conception        whose content contains {VERMUTEN} as a subset.     b. VERMUTEN =        the relation between x1, x2, and s such that        x2 is willing to believe during x1 that s is a fact. (8) a. .vermutlich-adv. =        the property of being a perception or conception        whose content contains {VERMUTLICH-ADV} as a subset.     b. VERMUTLICH-ADV =        the relation between x1, x2, and s such that        1. x2 produces x1 and        2. there is an x3 such that           a. is in the extension of .vermuten. and           b. the time of x1 is part of the time of x3. Note that .vermutlich-adv. is construed as a deictic concept: it is the speaker to whom the presumption is ascribed. As a replacement for (6 a), both (9) and (10) were considered: (9) The relation between V and V1 such that there is an x1 such that: a. 'x1 committed a bomb attack on Wednesday' and b. there is an x2 and x3 such that: i. x2 corresponds to V for V1, ii. x3 corresponds to V1 for V1, iii. is in the extension of .vermutlich-adv. and in the reference basis for _vermutlich_ w.r.t. V, V1, and .vermutlich-adv.; where s* = the state-of-affairs such that, for all x4, if V1 refers by _die IRA_ in V to x4, then x4 = x1. (10) [as in (9);       with s* =       the state-of-affairs such that, for all x4,       if 'x4 committed a bomb attack on Wednesday',       then x4 = x1.] The following semantic effects of syntactic function occurrences were assumed: 1. Condition a. (that is, the lambda expression corresponding to it) is an effect of the nucleus occurrence between _hat verübt_ and _die IRA hat am Mittwoch zwei Bombenanschläge verübt_. 2. Condition b. is an effect of the qualifier occurrence. 3. The overall logical structure ("there is an x1" and the conjunction of conditions a. and b.) is an effect of the nucleus occurrence between _die IRA hat am Mittwoch zwei Bombenanschläge verübt_ and the whole syntactic unit. Now, it was suggested that (8) is preliminary insofar as .vermutlich-adv. should be derived from .vermutlich-adn., the lexical meaning of the adnominal "vermutlich"; .vermutlich-adn. in turn is to be derived from .vermuten.. In addition, the extension of .vermutlich-adn. should involve properties instead of states-of-affairs. While states-of-affairs can easily be derived from properties (e.g. the state-of-affair that some x has the property y), I don't see how states-of-affairs like s* in (9) and (10) can be derived from properties, though. As an alternative, I'd like to suggest that .vermutlich-adv. equals .vermutlich-adn.. Given this assumption, (5) can be replaced by: (11) a. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that, for all x2,        if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2,        then there is an x3 and x4 such that 1. x3 corresponds to V for V1, 2. x4 corresponds to V1 for V1, and 3. is in the extension of .vermutlich-adn.            and in the reference basis for _vermutliche_ w.r.t. V, V1,            and .vermutlich-adn.;            where s* =            the state-of-affairs such that 'x1 is the head of x2'.       b. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that there is an x3 and x4 such that          1. x3 corresponds to V for V1,          2. x4 corresponds to V1 for V1, and          3. is in the extension of .vermutlich-adn.             and in the reference basis for _vermutliche_ w.r.t. V, V1,             and .vermutlich-adn.;             where s* =             the state-of-affairs such that, for all x2,             if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2,             then 'x1 is the head of x2'. All the best, Andreas Nolda -- Andreas Nolda http://www2.hu-berlin.de/linguistik/institut/nolda/ Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Philosophische Fakultät II Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik From andreas.nolda at CMS.HU-BERLIN.DE Wed Dec 14 07:13:51 2005 From: andreas.nolda at CMS.HU-BERLIN.DE (Andreas Nolda) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 08:13:51 +0100 Subject: Adnominal and adverbial "vermutlich" Message-ID: Hi everybody, on Monday, November 28, I gave a talk on the adnominal and the adverbial of "vermutlich" ('presumable') in German: (1) der vermutliche Kopf der Bande (2) a. Vermutlich die IR? hat am Mittwoch zwei Bombenanschl?ge ver?bt. ? ? b. Vermutlich hat die IRA am Mittwoch zwei B?mbenanschl?ge ver?bt. In my talk, I argued for the hypothesis that _vermutliche_ in (1) and _vermutlich_ in (2) are *qualifiers*: (3) a. _vermutliche_ in (1) qualifies _der Kopf der Bande_ w.r.t. _der ? ? ? ?Kopf_ or ? ? b. _vermutliche_ in (1) qualifies _der Kopf der Bande_ w.r.t. _der ? ? ? ?Kopf der Bande_. (4) a. _vermutlich_ in (2 a) qualifies _die IRA hat am Mittwoch zwei ? ? ? ?Bombenanschl?ge ver?bt_ w.r.t. _die IRA_. ? ? b. _vermutlich_ in (2 b) qualifies _hat die IRA am Mittwoch zwei ? ? ? ?Bombenanschl?ge ver?bt_ w.r.t. _hat die IRA am Mittwoch zwei ? ? ? ?Bombenanschl?ge ver?bt_. Thus, (1) is relationally ambiguous. What I am mainly interested in is the semantics of (1) and (2). Although I already profited much from the suggestions made during the discussion period of my talk, any further comments from your part are highly welcome. As to (1), I proposed the following intensional relations as components of (1)'s intermediate syntactic meanings: (5) a. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that, for all x2, ? ? ? ?if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2, ? ? ? ?then V1 presumes: 'x1 is the head of x2'. ? ? b. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that V1 presumes: for all x2, ? ? ? ?if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2, ? ? ? ?then 'x1 is the head of x2'. Regarding (2 a) and (2 b), I suggested propositions along the following lines: (6) a. The relation between V and V1 such that there is an x1 such ? ? ? ?that ? ? ? ?1. 'x1 committed a bomb attack on Wednesday' and ? ? ? ?2. V1 presumes that V1 refers by _die IRA_ in V to x1. ? ? b. The relation between V and V1 such that V1 presumes that ? ? ? ?'the IRA committed a bomb attack on Wednesday'. As pointed out by Monika Budde and Hans-Heinrich Lieb during the discussion period, the meanings in (5) and (6) suffer from the fact that they presuppose an empty lexical meaning for "vermutlich", which is hardly convincing. Together we constructed a preliminary lexical meaning .vermutlich-adv. for the adverbial "vermutlich", taking the verb meaning .vermuten. as a starting point ("s" stands for states-of-affairs): (7) a. .vermuten. = ? ? ? ?the property of being a perception or conception ? ? ? ?whose content contains {VERMUTEN} as a subset. ? ? b. VERMUTEN = ? ? ? ?the relation between x1, x2, and s such that ? ? ? ?x2 is willing to believe during x1 that s is a fact. (8) a. .vermutlich-adv. = ? ? ? ?the property of being a perception or conception ? ? ? ?whose content contains {VERMUTLICH-ADV} as a subset. ? ? b. VERMUTLICH-ADV = ? ? ? ?the relation between x1, x2, and s such that ? ? ? ?1. x2 produces x1 and ? ? ? ?2. there is an x3 such that ? ? ? ? ? a. is in the extension of .vermuten. and ? ? ? ? ? b. the time of x1 is part of the time of x3. Note that .vermutlich-adv. is construed as a deictic concept: it is the speaker to whom the presumption is ascribed. As a replacement for (6 a), both (9) and (10) were considered: (9) The relation between V and V1 such that there is an x1 such that: a. 'x1 committed a bomb attack on Wednesday' and b. there is an x2 and x3 such that: i. x2 corresponds to V for V1, ii. x3 corresponds to V1 for V1, iii. is in the extension of .vermutlich-adv. and in the reference basis for _vermutlich_ w.r.t. V, V1, and .vermutlich-adv.; where s* = the state-of-affairs such that, for all x4, if V1 refers by _die IRA_ in V to x4, then x4 = x1. (10) [as in (9); ? ? ? with s* = ? ? ? the state-of-affairs such that, for all x4, ? ? ? if 'x4 committed a bomb attack on Wednesday', ? ? ? then x4 = x1.] The following semantic effects of syntactic function occurrences were assumed: 1. Condition a. (that is, the lambda expression corresponding to it) is an effect of the nucleus occurrence between _hat ver?bt_ and _die IRA hat am Mittwoch zwei Bombenanschl?ge ver?bt_. 2. Condition b. is an effect of the qualifier occurrence. 3. The overall logical structure ("there is an x1" and the conjunction of conditions a. and b.) is an effect of the nucleus occurrence between _die IRA hat am Mittwoch zwei Bombenanschl?ge ver?bt_ and the whole syntactic unit. Now, it was suggested that (8) is preliminary insofar as .vermutlich-adv. should be derived from .vermutlich-adn., the lexical meaning of the adnominal "vermutlich"; .vermutlich-adn. in turn is to be derived from .vermuten.. In addition, the extension of .vermutlich-adn. should involve properties instead of states-of-affairs. While states-of-affairs can easily be derived from properties (e.g. the state-of-affair that some x has the property y), I don't see how states-of-affairs like s* in (9) and (10) can be derived from properties, though. As an alternative, I'd like to suggest that .vermutlich-adv. equals .vermutlich-adn.. Given this assumption, (5) can be replaced by: (11) a. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that, for all x2, ? ? ? ?if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2, ? ? ? ?then there is an x3 and x4 such that 1. x3 corresponds to V for V1, 2. x4 corresponds to V1 for V1, and 3. is in the extension of .vermutlich-adn. ? ? ? ? ? ?and in the reference basis for _vermutliche_ w.r.t. V, V1, ? ? ? ? ? ?and .vermutlich-adn.; ? ? ? ? ? ?where s* = ? ? ? ? ? ?the state-of-affairs such that 'x1 is the head of x2'. ? ? ? b. The relation between x1, V, and V1 such that there is an x3 and x4 such that ? ? ? ? ?1. x3 corresponds to V for V1, ? ? ? ? ?2. x4 corresponds to V1 for V1, and ? ? ? ? ?3. is in the extension of .vermutlich-adn. ? ? ? ? ? ? and in the reference basis for _vermutliche_ w.r.t. V, V1, ? ? ? ? ? ? and .vermutlich-adn.; ? ? ? ? ? ? where s* = ? ? ? ? ? ? the state-of-affairs such that, for all x2, ? ? ? ? ? ? if V1 refers by _der Bande_ in V to x2, ? ? ? ? ? ? then 'x1 is the head of x2'. All the best, Andreas Nolda -- Andreas Nolda http://www2.hu-berlin.de/linguistik/institut/nolda/ Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin Philosophische Fakult?t II Institut f?r deutsche Sprache und Linguistik