9.950, Sum: Topicalisation and Truth-conditions

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-950. Thu Jun 25 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.950, Sum: Topicalisation and Truth-conditions

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Review Editor:     Andrew Carnie <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Editors:  	    Brett Churchill <brett at linguistlist.org>
		    Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>
		    Elaine Halleck <elaine at linguistlist.org>
                    Anita Huang <anita at linguistlist.org>
                    Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
		    Julie Wilson <julie at linguistlist.org>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Zhiping Zheng <zzheng at online.emich.edu>

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/


Editor for this issue: Julie Wilson <julie at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:12:19 +0000
From:  "Carsten Breul" <upp20a at ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Subject:  Topicalisation and truth-conditions

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:12:19 +0000
From:  "Carsten Breul" <upp20a at ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Subject:  Topicalisation and truth-conditions

A big THANK YOU once again to the people who replied to my
query on topicalisation/fronting and truth-conditions
(LINGUIST 9.913).

Basically, the query was about whether sentences such as the
following have the same truth-conditions:

(1) Almost everybody answered at least one question.
(2) At least one question, almost everybody answered.

Heim & Kratzer (1998), for example, claim that they do not
have the same truth-conditions; I expressed my doubts about
this claim.

Of the 20 replies that I have got (till 25/6), 9 support
Heim & Kratzer's claim; 10 rather reject it, one of which by
a non-native speaker of English (one reply I wasn't exactly
sure how to interpret).

Several people who disagree with H&K point out however
that H&K's reading of (2) is (strongly) preferred if no
context is supplied. (This reading, the only possible one
for H&K, is that in which the respective question(s) is/are
the same for everybody who anwered it/them.)

Stephen Straight provides the following example,
syntactically analogous to (2), where the reading which is
said to be impossible according to H&K is in fact strongly
suggested:

(3) At least one pickle, almost everybody ate.

Gregory Ward supplies the following context (and cotext) for
the reading of (2) rejected by H&K:

   "[context: Teacher is administering quiz to class of 30
   students]

   Teacher: Class, time is up! Please turn in your
   exams. Students; [groaning, kvetching] Teacher: How
   many people were able to answer all three questions?
   Students: [2 students raise their hands] Teacher: How
   many people were able to answer two of the three
   questions? Students: [5 students raise their hands]
   Teacher: How many people were able to answer one of the
   three questions? Students: [28 students raise their
   hands] Teacher: Good. So at least one question almost
   everybody answered."

The fact that a suitable context has to be
supplied/invented for the disputed reading has been
pointed out in a number of replies.

Other aspects mentioned: different intonation (stress)
patterns may support different readings; the topic-focus
distinction of the fronted constituent is relevant; (2) has
a Yiddish dialectal flavour (and has been referred to in the
literature, it seems, as Y(iddish)-movement).

Bibliographical hints:

Ward, Gregory. 1983: "A Pragmatic Analysis of
Epitomization: Topicalization It's Not". In: Papers in
Linguistics 17:145-161.

- -. 1988: The Semantics and Pragmatics of
Preposing. Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics
Series. New York: Garland.

Further related questions raised in the replies: What is the
situation in other languages that have fronting? If there
are languages which really allow only one (H&K's) reading of
such sentences, how is the distinction between the two
alternatives acquired? (It was suggested that there are such
languages.)

Additional comment: For me, the German equivalent of (2) has
both readings:

(4) Mindestens eine Frage hat fast jeder beantwortet.

Interestingly, I do not have the impression that different
sentence accent placements have an effect on which of the
two readings is preferred:

(4') MINdestens eine Frage hat fast jeder beantwortet.
(4'') Mindestens EIne Frage hat fast jeder beantwortet.

Of course, the implications differ, but it is not the
difference between the two readings under discussion here.
Dr. Carsten Breul
Englisches Seminar
Universitaet Bonn
Regina-Pacis-Weg 5
53113 Bonn
Germany

e-mail: c.breul at uni-bonn.de

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-9-950