February 21, 2003

Time:

5:00pm, February 21, 2003

Place:

Conference room, 3rd floor, Building 10, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo Komaba campus

Speaker:

Katsuhiko Yabushita (Naruto University of Education)

Title:

World Knowledge in the Interpretation of Donkey Sentences as Seen in the Distribution of the Existential and Universal Readings

Abstract:

In this talk, I will present an analysis of the distribution of the existential and universal readings of donkey sentences in which world knowledge will play an essential role in interpretation for every instance of donkey sentence, not a marginal one resorted to only for exceptional cases as has generally been assumed in the literature. Specifically, on the Lewis-Kamp-Heim approach to quantification assuming the tripartite structure Q [Phi] [Psi], world knowledge will be proposed to be relevant to the specification on a particular context, of the following two points: (i) what (partial) assignments verifying the restriction [Phi] constitute distinct 'cases' with respect to the verification of the nuclear scope [Psi], and (ii) what it means for a 'case', now a set of assignment functions to verify the nuclear scope [Psi]. It will be seen that the distribution of the existential and universal readings falls out automatically as a consequence from the above settings without any stipulation specifying which quantificational force should be associated with the donkey pronoun. Furthermore, the current analysis will be demonstrated to be empirically more adequate than the existent analyses proposed in the literature, and its theoretical implications will be discussed.