Weak definites

2 Definites: the basics The queen came. P Q  x(P(x)&  y(P(y)  y=x)&Q(x)) P  x(P(x))

3 Definites: the basics A presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Do you want to do it again? Jane no longer writes fiction. The queen came.

4 Definites: some challenges The queen didn't cry. If there is no queen this sentence is undefined on Strawson's analysis.... true/false on Russell's analysis.  x(queen(x)&  y(queen(y)  y=x)&cry(x))  x(queen(x)&  y(queen(y)  y=x)&  cry(x))

5 Definites: some challenges Mary has the only mother who doesn't want her daughter to go to college. Mary is the wisest woman on this planet. > Rethinking the presuppositions that come with definites. > Come and see Liz Coppock's talk at the workshop!

6 Definites: some challenges The queen came. > Different queen depending on the country you're at... > How is this compatible with uniqueness? > Standard solution: the uniqueness of definites is sensitive to domain restrictions. > See Lewis (1973) and Westerståhl (1985).

7 Definites: some challenges The students came. Plurality seems to clash with the function of the definite article... > Standard solution: define a variant for the plural. > Maximality.

8 Definites: some challenges The boys built a raft. > It's not necessary for every boy to have contributed to the raft... > How is this compatible with maximality? > See Brisson (1998).

9 Definites: some challenges John went to C1000 and Mary went to AH. Both went to the store. How does this fit in with uniqueness? > The topic for this and next week.

Carlson & Sussman

11 Carlson & Sussman: weak definites Sue went to the store. Sue took her nephew to the hospital. Marina took the bus to her office. Luisa listened to the radio until she fell asleep. Luisa called the doctor this morning.

12 Carlson & Sussman Standard test: VP ellipsis John went to the hospital and Mary too. John went to the house and Mary too.

13 Carlson & Sussman Lexically restricted class of nouns Scarface is in the pen. vs. Scarface is in the cell. No modification possible He went to the hospital. vs. He went to the 5- story hospital. Semantic enrichment Scarface is in the pen. > he is incarcerated

14 Carlson & Sussman Weak readings only pop up in suitable contexts Kenneth is at the store. vs. Kenneth is behind the store. Narrow scope behaviour Each man listened to the radio.

15 Carlson & Sussman: the experiment > Two parts: pre-test + experiment. > Rationale behind the experiment. > Results. > Goal of the experiment.

Questions/discussion

Background

18 Background Sue took her nephew to college/to prison/to class. Sue took her nephew to the hospital/to the store/to the beach. "Very approximately, both the bare singulars and the weak definites are used in constructions which designate typical or habitual activities" (p.4)

19 Background What does "typical and habitual activities" mean in this sentence? [...] If being in college, school or prison are typical and habitual activities of a person, so what kind of activities are "eating" or "sleeping"?

20 Background The authors indicate that 'this class is lexically restricted'. What does this really mean? Are there any features restricting this class? What's the difference between the lexical restrictions the authors note and the fact that bare singulars and weak definites have to be lexically governed?

Experimental design

22 Experimental design One flaw in the current experimental design would be the placement of the human actor in the picture.

23 Experimental design Are the sentences in table 2 uttered completely? They don't seem to fit the visual stimuli very well. For example, the sentence in 6 start with "after she finishes her breakfast," but the person in the picture is just sitting on the floor with no trace of breakfast around.

24 Experimental design In the case of listening to the radio, the person will have to be in a room with three radios. This also seems a little strange. We have a lot more than three radios, but there's only one per room that we use. The same with calendars. Do people really have more calendars that they use?

25 Experimental design

26 Experimental design I really wonder if it's necessary to mention the first bits of the auditory stimuli ('When she gets back from jazzercize class', 'After she finishes breakfast',...)

27 Experimental design This experiment does not have any filler. In my idea, after two or three sentences, participants are able to guess the main purpose of the test and by understanding the purpose, they do not answer intuitively anymore and they try to answer purposefully. Therefore, adding some filler can increase the structural validity of the test.

28 Experimental design The experiment had an unexpected outcome, as it showed that indefinite definites got different results from regular indefinites.

29 Experimental design I am not able to distinguish regular definite/indefinite definite versions of sentences 3 and 4.

Analysis

31 Analysis One possible suggestion is that the weak definites are in fact indefinite NP's in disguise. That is, in "John read the newspaper" on the weak reading, the semantics is just that of "John read a newspaper". [Weak definites would then end] up being truth-conditionally identical to an indefinite -- modulo semantic enrichment if indeed this is a part of the semantics and not just a (strong) implicature.

32 Background If in bed really means 'in bed with the intention of sleeping/resting', then what does the following sentence mean: "John was in bed writing his dissertation." I can see that "I am in jail visiting my mom." is slightly awkward, but I don't see much wrong with John's writing in bed.

33 Analysis Why aren't examples in 6 considered idioms? Or why is there a distinction between idioms that use bare singulars and regular bare singulars?

34 Analysis I thought of a couple examples in which indefinite definites definitely don't behave like standard indefinites. Early in the paper indefinite definites were equated with bare singulars, so I'll use a bare singular to illustrate this, say "John is in bed." I think this is taken to mean that John is in not just any bed, but John's bed. If John went to a party at Mary's house and passed out in her bed, a guest asking where John was would be confused if someone said "John is in bed," because this implies I think that John went home.

Follow-up

36 Follow-up Carlson states in his conclusion "While the data we have worked with here has been exclusively from English, there are strong indications that similar subgroups can be found in other languages with definite articles." Are these predictions borne out?