Default Semantics Workshop University of Pisa, 8 May 2012 Kasia M. Jaszczolt University of Cambridge 1

 Part 1 Default Semantics and Interactive Semantics: An introduction  Part 2 Selected applications: Temporal reference in discourse  Part 3 Selected applications: First-person reference in discourse and beliefs de se 2

 Is the concept of time primitive or is it composed of simpler concepts?  How do linguistic expressions of time reflect it? 3

4

Jaszczolt, K. M. forthcoming a. 'Temporality and epistemic commitment: An unresolved question'. In: K. Jaszczolt and L. de Saussure (eds). Time: Language, Cognition, and Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaszczolt, K. M. forthcoming b. 'Cross-linguistic differences in expressing time and universal principles of utterance interpretation'. In: L. Filipovic and K. Jaszczolt (eds). Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Linguistic Diversity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 5

What is expressed in the lexicon in one language may be expressed by grammar in another. 6

What is expressed overtly in one language may be left to pragmatic inference or default interpretation in another. 7

 Time-tense mismatches: 8

(1)Lidia went to a concert yesterday. (regular past) (2)This is what happened yesterday. Lidia goes to a concert, meets her school friend and tells her… (past of narration) (3) Lidia would have gone to a concert (then). (epistemic necessity past) (4) Lidia must have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic necessity past) (5) Lidia may have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past) (6) Lidia might have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past) 9

(7) Lidia is at a concert now. (regular present) (8) Lidia will be at a concert now. (epistemic necessity present) (9) Lidia must be at a concert now. (epistemic necessity present) (10) Lidia may be at a concert now. (epistemic possibility present) (11) Lidia might be at a concert now. (epistemic possibility present) 10

(12) Lidia goes to a concert tomorrow evening. (‘tenseless’ future) (13) Lidia is going to a concert tomorrow evening. (futurate progressive) (14) Lidia is going to go to a concert tomorrow evening. (periphrastic future) (15) Lidia will go to a concert tomorrow evening. (regular future) (16) Lidia must be going to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic necessity future) (17) Lidia may go to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic possibility future) (18) Lidia might go to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic possibility future) 11

(19) a.…wa-Ingereza wa-li-wa-chukuawa-lemaiti, 3Pl-British 3Pl-Past-3Pl-take3Pl-Demcorpses ‘…then the British took the corpses, b.wa-ka-wa-tiakatika baomoja, 3Pl-Cons-3Pl-put.ononboardone put them on a flat board, c.wa-ka-ya-telemeshamaji-nikwautaratibu w-ote… 3Pl-Cons-3Pl-lower water-Locwithorder 3Pl-all and lowered them steadily into the water…’ adapted from Givón (2005: 154) 12

Narration: (20)Lidia played a sonata.The audience applauded. e 1  e 2 13

only future (kelh) – non-future distinction (Matthewson 2006) 14

Future can be realis or irrealis 15

(21)m 3 ae:r 3 i: I kh 2 iann 3 iy 3 ai: Marywritenovel 16

(21a)Mary wrote a novel. (21b)Mary was writing a novel. (21c)Mary started writing a novel but did not finish it. (21d)Mary has written a novel. (21e)Mary has been writing a novel. (21f)Mary writes novels. / Mary is a novelist. (21g)Mary is writing a novel. (21h)Mary will write a novel. (21i)Mary will be writing a novel. from Srioutai (2006: 45) 17

‘Why do we believe that events are to be distinguished as past, present, and future? I conceive that the belief arises from distinctions in our own experience. At any moment I have certain perceptions, I have also the memory of certain other perceptions, and the anticipation of others again. The direct perception itself is a mental state qualitatively different from the memory or the anticipation of perceptions.’ McTaggart (1908: 127) 18

(i)supervenience of the concept of time on the concept of epistemic detachment (temporal properties on modal properties in semantics) (ii)supervenience of the concept of time on space-time (properties of the concept of time on properties of space- time). 19

A set of properties T supervenes on a set of properties M iff no two things can differ with respect to T properties without also differing with respect to M properties. ‘There cannot be a T-difference without an M-difference.’ cf. McLaughlin & Bennett

The logical form of the sentence can not only be extended but also replaced by a new semantic representation when the primary, intended meaning demands it. Such extensions or substitutions are primary meanings and their representations are merger representations in Default Semantics. There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations. 21

The logical form of the sentence can not only be extended but also replaced by a new semantic representation when the primary, intended meaning demands it. Such extensions or substitutions are primary meanings and their representations are merger representations in Default Semantics. There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations. Merger representations have the status of mental representations. 22

The logical form of the sentence can not only be extended but also replaced by a new semantic representation when the primary, intended meaning demands it. Such extensions or substitutions are primary meanings and their representations are merger representations in Default Semantics. There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations. Merger representations have the status of mental representations. They have a compositional structure: they are proposition-like, truth-conditionally evaluable constructs. 23

(1)Lidia went to a concert yesterday. (regular past) (2)This is what happened yesterday. Lidia goes to a concert, meets her school friend and tells her… (past of narration) (3) Lidia would have gone to a concert (then). (epistemic necessity past) (4) Lidia must have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic necessity past) (5) Lidia may have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past) (6) Lidia might have gone to a concert (yesterday). (epistemic possibility past) 24

25

Acc ├ p‘it is acceptable that it is the case that p’ Grice (2001) 26

ACC Δ ├ Σ ‘it is acceptable to the degree Δ that Σ is true’ 27

amended and extended language of DRSs (discourse representation structures) (Discourse Representation Theory, DRT, Kamp and Reyle 1993) 28

Σ 29

Σ 30

(7) Lidia is at a concert now. (regular present) (8) Lidia will be at a concert now. (epistemic necessity present) (9) Lidia must be at a concert now. (epistemic necessity present) (10) Lidia may be at a concert now. (epistemic possibility present) (11) Lidia might be at a concert now. (epistemic possibility present) 31

32

(22)Lidia will often sing in the shower. (dispositional necessity present) 33

Σ 34

Σ 35

Σ 36

(12) Lidia goes to a concert tomorrow evening. (‘tenseless’ future) (13) Lidia is going to a concert tomorrow evening. (futurate progressive) (14) Lidia is going to go to a concert tomorrow evening. (periphrastic future) (15) Lidia will go to a concert tomorrow evening. (regular future) (16) Lidia must be going to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic necessity future) (17) Lidia may go to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic possibility future) (18) Lidia might go to a concert tomorrow evening. (epistemic possibility future) 37

38

 39

 40

 Fig.11: Σ for example (17) ‘Lidia may go to a concert tomorrow evening’(epistemic possibility future) 41

(21)m 3 ae:r 3 i: I kh 2 iann 3 iy 3 ai: Marywritenovel 42

 Fig. 14:  for example (21) ‘Mary wrote a novel’ (regular past) 43

Realis/irrealis future (Central Pomo): ACC Δ ├ Σ Consecutive tense (Swahili): WS + CPI pm 44

 Compositionality is a semantic universal √ compositionality of merger representations  Gricean principles of inference are a pragmatic universal. √ CPI, SCWD 45

 Merger representations of Default Semantics can represent temporal reference which is achieved in discourse in a variety of ways, not only through grammatical tenses and adverbials. 46

 Merger representations of Default Semantics can represent temporal reference which is achieved in discourse in a variety of ways, not only through grammatical tenses and adverbials.  Cross-linguistic differences in expressing time can be explained by a universal semantics of temporality in terms of the underlying concept of epistemic modality ACC Δ ├ Σ. 47

 Merger representations of Default Semantics can represent temporal reference which is achieved in discourse in a variety of ways, not only through grammatical tenses and adverbials.  Cross-linguistic differences in expressing time can be explained by a universal semantics of temporality in terms of the underlying concept of epistemic modality ACC Δ ├ Σ.  Compositionality is best understood as pragmatic compositionality, sought at the level of Σ s rather than WS. 48

 Merger representations of Default Semantics can represent temporal reference which is achieved in discourse in a variety of ways, not only through grammatical tenses and adverbials.  Cross-linguistic differences in expressing time can be explained by a universal semantics of temporality in terms of the underlying concept of epistemic modality ACC Δ ├ Σ.  Compositionality is best sought on the level of Σ rather than WS.  Temporality is not a primitive concept. It supervenes on the concept of epistemic detachment (ACC Δ ├ Σ’) from the truth of the merged proposition (Σ’) 49

 ‘Degrees of detachment from certainty’ and ‘degrees of commitment to the (truth of the proposition representing an) eventuality’ are quantitative concepts.  The past/present/future distinction intuitively appears to be a qualitative one.  If one founds the latter on the former, one has to either provide a way of correlating one with the other, or explain away the intuitive qualitative contrast between the past, the present and the future. 50

? How exactly, if at all, does the value associated with the degree of epistemic commitment (or alternatively the degree of epistemic detachment) identify the ‘direction’ of detachment, into the past and into the future, as well as the sense of the present? 51

(23)John may/might be here tomorrow. John may/might be here now. John may/might have been here yesterday. Temporality is composed of such diversified modal atomic concepts as, say, may n >may n+1 >may n+2... etc, where ‘>’ stands for the ordering of the strength of expressed commitment. 52

= either  different degrees of detachment (we need values for the degrees n, n+1, n+2,...). or  we adopt a hypothesis that there are different types of detachment on the underlying modal level 53

Both options, (i) the direct-quantitative view (DQ), that is the direct reliance on values of n, n+1, n+2..., and (ii) shifting the arguably qualitative differences between P, N and F to the also arguably qualitative differences between modal expressions on their occasions of use (the modal-contextualist view, MC), are feasible hypotheses and candidates for answers to the UQ. 54

Asher, N. and A. Lascarides Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Enç, M ‘Tense and modality’. In: S. Lappin (ed.) The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Engemann, H ‘The concept of futurity: A study with reference to English, French and German’. M.Phil. thesis, University of Cambridge. Evans, N. and S.C. Levinson ‘The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences Givón, T Context as other Minds: The Pragmatics of Sociality, Cognition and Communication. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. Grice, P Aspects of Reason. Ed. by R. Warner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jaszczolt, K. M Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaszczolt, K. M Representing Time: An Essay on Temporality as Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaszczolt, K. M. 2010a. ‘Defaults in semantics and pragmatics’ (second edition). In: E. N. Zalta (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Jaszczolt, K. M. 2010b. ‘Default Semantics’. In: B. Heine and H. Narrog (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Jaszczolt, K. M 'Communicating about the past through modality in English and Thai' (with J. Srioutai). In: A. Patard and F. Brisard (eds). Cognitive Approaches to Tense, Aspect, and Epistemic Modality. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Jaszczolt, K. M. forthcoming a. 'Temporality and epistemic commitment: An unresolved question'. In: K. Jaszczolt and L. de Saussure (eds). Time: Language, Cognition, and Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaszczolt, K. M. forthcoming b. 'Cross-linguistic differences in expressing time and universal principles of utterance interpretation'. In: L. Filipovic and K. Jaszczolt (eds). Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Linguistic Diversity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kamp, H. and U. Reyle From Discourse to Logic: Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Le Poidevin, R The Images of Time: An Essay on Temporal Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ludlow, P Semantics, Tense, and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. McLaughlin, B. and K. Bennett ‘Supervenience’. In: E. Zalta (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 56

McTaggart, J. E ‘The unreality of time’. Mind 17. Reprinted in: J. E. McTaggart Philosophical Studies. London: E. Arnold Matthewson, L ‘Temporal semantics in a superficially tenseless language’. Linguistics and Philosophy 29: Srioutai, J ‘The Thai c 1 a: A marker of tense or modality?’ In: E. Daskalaki et. al. (eds). Second CamLing Proceedings. University of Cambridge Srioutai, J Time Conceptualization in Thai with Special Reference to d 1 ay 1 II, kh 3 oe:y, k 1 aml 3 ang, y 3 u: I and c 1 a. PhD thesis. University of Cambridge. von Fintel, K. and L. Matthewson ‘Universals in semantics’. The Linguistic Review