16.173, Diss: Semantics: Robinson: 'Unexpected ...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-173. Thu Jan 20 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.173, Diss: Semantics: Robinson: 'Unexpected ...'

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1)
Date: 12-Jan-2005
From: Heather Robinson < hmr25 at rci.rutgers.edu >
Subject: Unexpected (In)definiteness: Plural Generic Expressions in Romance

	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:23:01
From: Heather Robinson < hmr25 at rci.rutgers.edu >
Subject: Unexpected (In)definiteness: Plural Generic Expressions in Romance


Institution: Rutgers University
Program: Department of Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2005

Author: Heather Merle Robinson

Dissertation Title: Unexpected (In)definiteness: Plural Generic Expressions in
Romance

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics

Subject Language(s): English (ENG)
                     French (FRN)
                     Italian (ITN)


Dissertation Director(s):
Veneeta Dayal

Dissertation Abstract:

Definite descriptions in Romance are well-known to be the preferred form
taken by generic arguments in those languages. Less well-known is the fact
that Romance definites also differ from English ones in that they are much
more restricted in their availability as deictic DPs. In this dissertation,
I propose an account for definite descriptions in Romance which captures
both of these facts.  I also explore the consequences of the restricted
availability of bare plurals in these languages. I show that by appealing
to the maximality presuppositions of the lexical definite determiner, and
the ways that those presuppositions may be satisfied, we can account for
the distribution of the definite in Romance, and for the limitations on
this distribution. In particular, looking at languages such as the Romance
ones allows us to make more fine-grained observations about both the nature
of generic quantification in various types of sentences, and about the role
that maximality plays in the interpretation of generic arguments across
languages. These observations cannot be made when we only consider a
language such as English, where bare plurals occur in all generic contexts.

The discussion in this dissertation focuses on French, before moving on to
a discussion of the consequences of the proposal for other Romance
languages. The account developed gives a typology of generic determiners in
French and Italian, and leads to greater understanding of the interactions
between definite and other descriptions in generic and episodic contexts alike.





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