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<p>my intuition is that events (eventualities) with modals make some
sense in an object language: <br>
</p>
<p>Kim can close the window.</p>
<p>can(e,k,close(e',k,w))<br>
</p>
e refers to the state of Kim having the ability, much as in<br>
<br>
Kim believes Sandy slept.<br>
<br>
believe(e,k,sleep(e',s))<br>
<br>
we can talk about the state of Kim having the belief.<br>
<br>
Kim could close the window for an hour.<br>
<br>
has a reading where it's Kim's ability that lasts for an hour (e.g.,
follow up with "and then was too weak") - that seems OK in terms of
eventuality modification.<br>
<br>
Originally event semantics didn't include states and people argued
both ways, and off the top of my head, I can't remember who ...
Still, states make a certain amount of sense in terms of a
collection of properties or potentialities associated with a
spatio-temporal location, in a way that the not "event" and the
probably "event" don't. I think one might find discussion of why
not events don't make sense in some of the situation semantics
literature.<br>
<br>
Decomposed events have been proposed in a number of contexts where
the adverbial seems to refer to a preparatory state or whatever.
Higginbotham and various Generative Lexicon people (Pustejovsky et
al), for instance. e.g.,<br>
<br>
(13) Mary came in an hour for an hour.<br>
<br>
from a paper that talks about the event decomposition idea (which I
just found with an extremely cursory search, so don't take it as a
proper citation)
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/research/linguistics/publications/wpl/96papers/evans">https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/research/linguistics/publications/wpl/96papers/evans</a><br>
<br>
So the idea that one can say that there's a preparatory state of not
talking in:<br>
<br>
(2a) Kim didn't speak for a long time. <br>
<br>
is perhaps sort of plausible. i.e., one could claim that the single
event allows an underspecification of the two readings.<br>
But then <br>
<br>
<div>(2b) For a long time, Kim didn't speak. ;;; Kim was silent for
a long time</div>
<div><br>
</div>
is problematic in that it only has the one reading. One could
stipulate that, of course, but it's not pretty.<br>
<br>
Maybe I'm wrong to be so worried and someone has seriously proposed
not events. Ask Alex? What one's looking for (in terms of the
object language) is a literature where the denotation is discussed -
not simply an argument from ambiguity / readings. <br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Ann<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 19/05/2017 04:17, Emily M. Bender
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAMype6dR=WvHom1YgXWpPt79sAP1oVMjEbNKpHqSMZwSMie9JA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Right---I'm trying to understand why it is that we
give different representations
<div>for not v. other modal operators wrt which event variable
is exposed, with the</div>
<div>longer range goal of getting to tests that could in
principle be applied in other languages</div>
<div>too, so we could find out if the representation we pick for
sentential negation</div>
<div>works across languages. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Collecting the data that has come up so far in this thread:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(1a) <span style="font-size:12.8px">We could unexpectedly
close the window. ;;; could(unexpectedly(close)) /
unexpectedly(could(close))</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">(1b) </span><span
style="font-size:12.8px">We did not unexpectedly close the
window. ;;; not(unexpectedly(close))</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">(1c) </span><span
style="font-size:12.8px">Unexpectedly we did not close the
window. ;;; unexpectedly(not(close))</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">[Aside: The reason I was
asking about extraction is that we do have a construction
that</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">allows an adverb to attach
low in the semantics but appear at the left edge of the
clause.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">That would predict
not(unexpectedly(close)) for (1c), which I think isn't
available.]</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br>
</span></div>
<div>(2a) Kim didn't speak for a long time. ;;; Kim spoke for
only a short time / Kim was silent for a long time<br>
</div>
<div>(2b) For a long time, Kim didn't speak. ;;; Kim was silent
for a long time</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If (1a) is really ambiguous, is that meant to be an
argument that 'could' has its</div>
<div>own event that can be modified? Why is it less problematic
for a modal operator like</div>
<div>'could' to introduce an event (in terms of the underlying
semantics) than something</div>
<div>like 'probably' or 'not'? Do the readings of (1b) and (1c)
correspond to the two readings of (1a)? </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Just now it seems to me that the two readings of (1a) and
the pair (1b)/(1c) aren't really</div>
<div>relevant to the question of which INDEX is propagated,
because in any case the ARG1 of</div>
<div>unexpectedly or not is handle-valued. But, we'd consider
'for a long time' to be a non-scopal </div>
<div>modifier in (2), right? So what do we want 'for' to take
as its ARG in (2b)/the second</div>
<div>reading of (2a)?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Emily</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<span style="font-size:12.8px"></span></div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 6:55 PM, Guy
Emerson <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:gete2@cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">gete2@cam.ac.uk</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">I think Emily's goal was to figure out what
representation we should use, and whether we need to have
different representations cross-linguistically. (Emily,
is that a fair summary?) I can see that a negated event
could be problematic, but I was going off the ERG
semantics, where neg_rel has two arguments, so it looks
like we do have not(e,P). In DMRS, we can avoid saying
whether there is an event, but it's there in the MRS.<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2017-05-18 8:01 GMT-07:00 Ann
Copestake <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>I do think it's really important to be clear
what the goals are. Are you trying to figure
out what the representation should be in terms
of the underlying semantics? Because then
talking about negation events could well be
problematic. There are moves one can make
which might work - e.g., situations in Barwise
and Perry terms (but then that doesn't
necessarily fit with other things we're doing)
- but one can't simply write e.g., not(e,P)
and assume it's meaningful. I mean, maybe you
want e to refer to the period of time when
not(P) holds. But I guess you can see that
this is not something that is obviously OK.<br>
</p>
<p>Alternatively, you're essentially leaving the
object language up to someone else and trying
to come up with a representation which
captures the right things about the
syntax/semantics interface. But I still think
you have to know something about plausible
target object languages. <br>
</p>
<p>All best,</p>
<p>Ann<br>
</p>
<div>
<div class="m_-8265124334523577790h5"> <br>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240moz-cite-prefix">On
17/05/17 21:14, Guy Emerson wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>To bring this back to Emily's
question, I can think of two ways that
we might represent the "silent for a
long time" reading:<br>
<br>
</div>
Option 1. "for a long time" takes the
neg_rel's variable as an argument. This
could be constructed compositionally
using the negation-as-a-modal analysis
that Emily mentioned. This would then
allow neg_rel to have a consistent
semantics in the Grammar Matrix.<br>
<br>
On the downside, if we push the INDEX up
to the neg_rel, we can't get hold of
_speak_v_rel any more - which we need if
we're going to model adverbs attaching
after negation but scoping underneath
negation. With DMRS composition, we can
construct it compositionally even if we
stick with the scopal modifier approach
(so the INDEX is still "speak"), and
then connect an ARG/EQ link to the
LTOP. This would, however, mean
relaxing the constraints in the proposed
DMRS algebra, since we have an /EQ link
selecting the LTOP, not the INDEX.<br>
<br>
<div>Option 2. "for a long time" shares
a label with the neg_rel, but still
takes _speak_v_rel as an argument. So
then "for a long time" is outside the
scope of negation. To construct this
compositionally, we want _speak_v_rel
to be the INDEX (for both MRS and DMRS
composition).<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>If we take this approach, then we
can treat modals as scopal modifiers
and still get two readings. So this
doesn't directly answer Emily's
question, because now there are two
different ways of getting two
readings. But it would at least
suggest that we can treat modals as
scopal modifiers, which would allow a
more consistent semantics of negation
in the Grammar Matrix.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>That's the main thing I wanted to
say - but Re: Robin Hood:<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've found Ivan Sag's discussion of
the jailing Robin Hood examples (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.academia.edu/2798317/Adjunct_scope"
target="_blank">https://www.academia.edu/2798<wbr>317/Adjunct_scope</a>),
apparently discussed by Dowty (1979).
I can see the relevance, in that "for
three years" could refer to the time
in jail, or the time spent putting him
in jail. But I'm not convinced by the
argument that we should decompose this
as a causative - otherwise, the verb
"sentence" also seems like it could be
decomposed into something like
cause(be-in-jail), but it doesn't
pattern like "jail":<br>
<br>
The Sheriff of Nottingham jailed Robin
Hood for three years.<br>
*The Sheriff of Nottingham jailed
Robin Hood to three years.<br>
The Sheriff of Nottingham sentenced
Robin Hood for three years. (repeated
jailing reading)<br>
The Sheriff of Nottingham sentenced
Robin Hood to three years. (single
jailing reading)<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>In any case, we can get different
readings for verbs without an obvious
lexical decomposition:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>I ate meat for a year (but then
became vegetarian)<br>
</div>
<div>I ate meat for an hour (and then I
was very full)<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Bouma&Malouf&Sag also
discuss "open again", but similarly,
"Kim bought X and sold it again" has a
reading where this is the first time
Kim sold it. And explicitly
representing that reading by
decomposing "sell" would require
something like cause(be-sold). This
seems dubious to me. I'm much more
tempted to say that "again" has a
fuzzier meaning than Dowty assumes.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I couldn't find any examples which
convinced me that there's an
interaction with the morphosyntax, so
I feel like this is all something that
we can safely leave out of the MRS.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2017-05-17 3:57
GMT-07:00 Ann Copestake <span
dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk"
target="_blank">aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
text="#000000">
<p>I get those readings but note:<br>
</p>
<p>3. For a long time, Kim didn't
speak.<br>
</p>
only has your reading 2.<br>
<br>
so although I'd want to try and
give an underspecified semantics
for your sentence, one would have
to do that in a way that
recognised this has a different
semantics.<br>
<br>
for negation there's an extensive
literature - I'd recommend Horn's
book.<br>
<br>
For some of these type of
examples, I've played around with
an account that decomposes the
event variable so that one might
claim that the negation was
operating over different parts of
a complex event structure in
standard MRS. But that only
allows for 3 in a very stipulative
way, if it works at all. Negated
events are complicated.<br>
<br>
Incidentally, Ivan Sag (somewhere)
had a discussion of examples like:<br>
<br>
The Sheriff of Nottingham jailed
Robin Hood for three years.<br>
<br>
which may be relevant - I honestly
can't remember.<br>
<br>
Anyway - I was trying to answer a
slightly different type of
question, which was what the
semantics of unexpected_rel might
be. I was just trying to convey
the modal flavour - not talking
about the different readings the
English sentence might have. It
may be that with some sort of
account that did the negation
examples, one could also get a
non-scopal `unexpectedly' to give
two structurally different
readings, but that's a somewhat
different issue.<br>
<br>
All best,<br>
<br>
Ann
<div>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240h5"><br>
<br>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417moz-cite-prefix">On
17/05/17 02:08, Guy Emerson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>So, if I've
understood
correctly:<br>
<br>
- using a scopal
modifier for
negation only
leaves one
variable for
non-scopal
modifiers<br>
</div>
- using a modal for
negation would allow
non-scopal modifiers
to take either the
main verb's
variable, or the
modal's variable<br>
<br>
</div>
But then, what about
"Kim didn't speak for
a long time", which I
think can have two
readings:<br>
<br>
</div>
1. Kim spoke for only a
short time<br>
</div>
<div>2. Kim was silent for
a long time<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>It looks like the ERG
just gets the first
reading.<br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2017-05-11
13:55 GMT-07:00 Ann
Copestake <span
dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px
#ccc
solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div
bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
text="#000000">
<p>I think <i>unexpectedly</i>
is scopal in at
least some
circumstances.
Specifically I
would say the
semantics of <i>unexpectedly</i>
is modal (in a
broad sense) -
e.g., I could
treat it in
terms of
possible worlds
that I'm
considering at
some timepoint t
- if in only 1%
of possible
worlds does P
happen, and P
actually happens
by t' (where t'
> t) then
unexpected(P).
This is very
crude and
incomplete, but
all I'm trying
to do here is
convey the modal
intuition.<br>
</p>
<p> Under this
interpretation:<br>
</p>
<p>
unexpected(not(win(Kim)))
<br>
</p>
<p>means that at
time t I thought
not(win(Kim))
had 1% chance,
but at t'
not(win(Kim))
has come to pass</p>
<p>this isn't the
same as:<br>
</p>
<p>
not(unexpected(win(Kim)))<br>
</p>
which means
it-is-not-the-case
that [ at time t I
thought win(Kim)
had 1% chance and
at t' win(Kim) has
come to pass ]
i.e., either I
expected Kim to
win all along or
Kim actually
didn't win<span><br>
<br>
<blockquote
type="cite">Also,
in (3),
unexpectedly
could be a
sentence-initial
discourse
<div>adverb
(scopal?) or
an adverb
extracted from
lower in the
clause...</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</span> As I
remember it, the
discussion about
possible sentence
situation meaning
is a semantic one
rather than
depending on
whether there's
extraction or
not. <br>
<br>
All best,<br>
<br>
Ann
<div>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417m_-310726251724269823h5"><br>
<br>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417m_-310726251724269823m_-1602240225619716942moz-cite-prefix">On
11/05/2017
21:13, Emily
M. Bender
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Thanks,
Ann, for the
quick reply!
This connects
to other
things I've
been
<div>curious
about
recently,
including how
we decide if
something like
"unexpectedly"</div>
<div>is scopal
or not. Also,
in (3),
unexpectedly
could be a
sentence-initial
discourse</div>
<div>adverb
(scopal?) or
an adverb
extracted from
lower in the
clause...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Emily</div>
</div>
<div
class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div
class="gmail_quote">On
Wed, May 10,
2017 at 2:11
AM, Ann
Copestake <span
dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">aac10@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div
bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
text="#000000">
<p>I think the
idea is to
represent the
contrast
between:<br>
</p>
<p>1 We
could
unexpectedly
close the
window.</p>
<p>either
ability to
close or
actual closure
is unexpected<br>
</p>
<p>2 We did
not
unexpectedly
close the
window.</p>
<p>only the
closure (if it
had happened)
would be
unexpected.</p>
<p>I don't
think this is
actually the
best
analysis. For
instance, for
me,<br>
</p>
<p>3
Unexpectedly
we did not
close the
window.</p>
has another
reading, which
we are not
capturing in
MRS. Claudia
Maiernborn
would
(perhaps)
treat this as
a sentential
situation
rather than an
event
modification
and it may be
that analysis
is also
available for
1 instead of
the modal
modification
analysis.<br>
<br>
I'm afraid I
don't have
time to
discuss this
properly at
the moment,
though. I
feel such a
discussion has
taken place,
but don't
remember the
venue.<br>
<br>
All best,<br>
<br>
Ann
<div>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417m_-310726251724269823m_-1602240225619716942h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417m_-310726251724269823m_-1602240225619716942m_6920975839983985265moz-cite-prefix">On
10/05/2017
01:13, Emily
M. Bender
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Dear
all,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm
curious about
the different
in analysis
between
neg_rel and
(other) scopal
adverbial </div>
<div>modifiers
on the one
hand and
modals on the
other in the
treatment of
the INDEX:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In (1)
and (2), the
INDEX of the
whole MRS
points to the
ARG0 of
_sleep_v_rel:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(1) Kim
doesn't sleep.</div>
<div>(2) Kim
probably
sleeps.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>... where
in (3) and (4)
it points to
the ARG0 of
_can_v_rel and
_would_v_rel
respectively:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(3) Kim
can sleep.</div>
<div>(4) Kim
would sleep.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm
wondering what
difference we
intend to
model here.
(This
question comes
up now</div>
<div>because
we're looking
at negation in
my grammar
engineering
class, and the
out-of-the-box</div>
<div>analysis
for languages
which express
negation with
an auxiliary
has neg_rel
falling</div>
<div>in the
latter class.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks,</div>
<div>Emily</div>
<div><br
clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417m_-310726251724269823m_-1602240225619716942m_6920975839983985265gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">Emily
M. Bender<br>
Professor, <span
style="font-size:12.8px">Department of Linguistics</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">Check
out CLMS on
facebook! <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.facebook.com/uwclma"
target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/uwclma</a><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br
clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div
class="m_-8265124334523577790m_-6591178192211473240m_-8944700136553354417m_-310726251724269823m_-1602240225619716942gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">Emily
M. Bender<br>
Professor, <span
style="font-size:12.8px">Department of Linguistics</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">Check
out CLMS on
facebook! <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.facebook.com/uwclma"
target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/uwclma</a><br>
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-- <br>
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<div dir="ltr">Emily M. Bender<br>
Professor, <span style="font-size:12.8px">Department
of Linguistics</span></div>
<div dir="ltr">Check out CLMS on facebook! <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.facebook.com/uwclma"
target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/uwclma</a><br>
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