Measurements, Numerals and Scales: Essays in Honour of Stephanie Solt

Description

This book brings together chapters on the semantics and pragmatics of measurement, scales, and numerical expressions. The chapters highlight recent developments in measurement theory, the meaning of numerical expressions and the relation between measurement scales and entailment scales. The authors provide explorations in formal and experimental semantics and pragmatics, as well as at the interfaces of this field with others including philosophy of language and sociolinguistics. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in these areas, as well as psychology, psycholinguistics and artificial intelligence. Acknowledgments Contents List of Figures List of Tables Introduction 1 Stephanie Solt: Her Influence as a Researcher, Colleague and Mentor 2 Measurement Theory 3 Numerical Expressions and Approximation 4 Scales and Polarity 5 Concluding Remarks and Wishes References Partitives, Comparatives and Proportional Measurement 1 Introduction 2 Background Assumptions on Decomposition 3 Solt's Generalization 4 Solt's 2018 Analysis 5 Problem: Varieties of Proportionality 6 Adapting Solt's Analysis 7 Concluding Thoughts References Modified Numerals, Vagueness, and Scale Granularity 1 Introduction 2 Implicatures from Modified Numerals 3 The Experimental Evidence 3.1 Methods and Procedure 3.2 Range of Expected Values 3.3 Most Likely Value 4 Discussion References Uncertainty, Quantity and Relevance Inferences from Modified Numerals 1 Introduction 2 Discriminability Versus Scalar Implicature 3 Implicatures from more than n when the Speaker has Uncertain Knowledge 4 Inferring the QUD from the Quantity Expression 5 Rationally Reconstructing the Causes of Speaker Meaning 6 Conclusion References Around ``Around'' 1 Introduction 2 Around vs. Between 3 A Weak Parametric Semantics for ``Around'' 4 ``Around'' as an Existential Quantifier 5 The Accounts Compared 6 Spatial Locations and Nearness 7 Conclusions References Evaluative Intensification and Positive Polarity: Catalan WELL as a Case Study 1 Introduction 2 Intensification, Valence and Evaluativity 3 The Case Study: BEN 3.1 Interaction with Scale Structure and Valence 3.2 BEN in Entailment-Cancelling Contexts 3.3 Lexical Semantics of BEN 4 Intensification and PPI-Hood 4.1 ch6soltwilsonsub 4.2 The PPI Behavior of BEN 5 Conclusions References She is Brilliant! Distinguishing Different Readings of Relative Adjectives 1 Introduction 1.1 Outline and Research Questions 1.2 Measurement Scales and Horn Scales 1.3 Negative Strengthening and its Polarity Asymmetry 2 Current Experiment 2.1 Goals and Predictions 2.2 Methods 2.2.1 Participants 2.2.2 Materials and Procedure 2.3 Results 3 Discussion and Conclusions References Numerals Denote Degree Quantifiers: Evidence from Child Language 1 Numerals and Upper Bounds 2 Experiment: Upper Bounds and Existential Modals in Child Language 3 Alternative Interpretations of Our Experimental Results 3.1 Scale Salience 3.2 `Playing It Safe' 3.3 Contextual Factors 4 Conclusion References Number, Numbers and the Mass/Count Distinction in Daakie (Ambrym, Vanuatu) 1 Introduction 2 Morphological Marking of Number 3 Expressing Number and Quantities 4 Basic Uses of Dual, Paucal and Plural 5 Honorific Use of Dual 6 Affiliative Use of Paucal 7 The Mass/Count Distinction References Representing Measurement: The View from Nominal Polysemy 1 Introduction 2 Measurement-Theoretic Characteristics of -th Nouns 3 The Polysemy of -th Nouns 4 Measurement-Theoretic Characteristics and Polysemy in a Broader Perspective References On the Status of Post-nominal Q Superlatives in Romanian 1 Introduction 2 The Possible Readings of Q Superlatives in Romanian 3 Explaining the Special Status of Post-nominal Q Superlatives 3.1 The Double Definiteness Construction (DDC) 3.2 Post-nominal Q Superlatives and the DDC 3.3 Extending the Analysis to Non-Q Superlatives 4 Conclusion References Unknown Numbers 1 Numerals and Scope 2 Drawing Inspiration from Epistemic Adjectives 3 Scope and Scopelessness 4 Conclusion References Some Speculative Remarks on the Semantics of Money Phrases 1 Introduction 2 Three Uses for Money Phrases 2.1 Degree Uses 2.2 Concrete Entity Uses 2.3 Abstract Entity Uses 3 A Preliminary Attempt at Unification 4 Conclusion References Quantifying the Register of German Quantificational Expressions: A Corpus-Based Study 1 The SOLT 1.1 Methods for the Independent Validation of the SOLT 1.2 Results of the Validation Study 2 Quantificational Expressions 3 Conclusion References Domain Restricted Measure Functions and the Extent Readings of Relative Measures 1 Introduction 2 Degree vs. Extent Readings 3 Extent Readings 4 Degree Readings 5 On Proportional Measure Functions 6 Conclusions References Amazing-Hodo 1 Introduction 2 Triviality-Based Analysis of Polarity Sensitivity and Three Uses of Hodo 2.1 `As'/`So'-Hodo 2.2 `Amazingly'-Hodo as a `So'-Hodo Cousin 3 Analysis 3.1 Universal Quantifiers as PPIs 3.2 Exhaustification by Even-EXH and the PPI-Hood of `Amazingly'-Hodo 4 Conclusion References A Novel Probabilistic Approach to Linguistic Imprecision 1 Introduction 2 Background: RSA 3 Proposal 3.1 Introducing the `Partial-Truth' Speaker 4 Extensions 4.1 Introducing More Alternatives 4.2 Restricting the Set of Alternatives 5 Discussion and Conclusion References Modification of Measure Nouns 1 Introduction 2 COCA 3 Results 3.1 Rates of Co-occurrence 3.2 Measure-Noun Modifying Adjectives 4 Conclusions References Index