Issue of Monday, April 14th, 2025

Colloquium 4/18 - Yasutada Sudo (UCL)

Speaker: Yasutada Sudo (UCL)
Title: Specific indefinites and dynamic presuppositions
Time: Friday, April 18th, 3:30pm - 5pm
Location: 32-141

Abstract: This is an attempt to explain the exceptional scope behavior of specific indefinites in terms of ‘dynamic presuppositions’—presuppositions with anaphoric content in addition to propositional content. It is also claimed that puzzling interpretive properties of ‘certain’ indefinites are straightforwardly explained as dynamic presuppositions with functional anaphora.

Minicourses 4/16-17 - Yasutada Sudo (UCL)

Speaker: Yasutada Sudo (UCL)
 
Title: Relative Atomicity
Lecture 1: Absolute Atomicity and distributivity
Lecture 2: Mass-count, distributivity, and classifiers in Relative Atomicity
 
Times: 
Lecture 1: April 16, 2025: 12:30-2pm
Lecture 2: April 17, 2025: 12:30-2pm
 
Location: 32-D461
 
Abstract: The standard model-theoretic approach to nominal number assumes that a model comes with an individuated domain of atomic entities and plural entities are constructed out of them as mereological sums (‘Absolute Atomicity’). I argue that Absolute Atomicity requires some unnatural assumptions when sub-atomic quantification is taken into consideration. I advocate an alternative approach, ‘Relative Atomicity’, where atomicity is only introduced in the course of semantic composition.

MorPhun 4/17 - Adam Przepiórkowski (Warsaw / MIT)

Speaker: Adam Przepiórkowski (Warsaw / MIT)
Title: Cases are partially ordered: Evidence from Estonian
Time: Thursday, April 17th, 5pm - 6pm
Location: 32-D769

Abstract: Caha 2009 et seq. argues that cases are universally totally ordered: NOM < ACC < GEN < PAR < obliques, with obliques also totally ordered. Arguments for this include case syncretisms and morphological containments in various languages, including Estonian. The aim of this talk is to present arguments from Estonian for a partial ordering, where in particular GEN(initive) and PAR(titive) are unordered: NOM < ACC < {GEN, PAR} < obliques. Some of the arguments are morphological (syncretism, containment), but I also adduce a syntactic argument, from covert c