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In this paper I observe a number of new plural and (apparently) quantified examples of free indirect discourse (FID) and protagonist projection (PP). I analyse them within major current theoretical approaches, proposing extensions to these approaches where needed. In order to derive the wide range of readings observed with plural protagonists, I show how we can exploit existing mechanisms for the interpretation of plural anaphora and plural predication. The upshot is that the interpretation of plural examples of perspective shift relies on a remarkable concert of covert semantic and pragmatic operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents two experiments comparing presupposition triggers that differ with respect to Focus-sensitivity. The hypothesis was that Focus-sensitive (+ focus) triggers require a linguistic antecedent in the discourse model, whereas presuppositions of triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity (– focus) are satisfied as entailments of the Common Ground. Each experiment tested a distinct prediction of this hypothesis, namely (i) being subject to salience, operationalized relative to the QUD, and (ii) global accommodation difficulty. Experiment 1 compared too as a + focus trigger and again as a – focus trigger in short dialogues and manipulated the presence or absence of material intervening between the target sentence containing the trigger and the utterance satisfying its presupposition. Intervening material led to a decrease in ratings as well as longer full sentence reading times of the target sentence for too but not again , in line with the prediction. Experiment 2 compared four trigger pairs that differed in Focus-sensitivity relative to presuppositionless control in a rating study in contexts that did not explicitly satisfy their presupposition. As predicted, + focus triggers showed a larger decrease in ratings than – focus triggers. The picture that emerges from these results is that the same kind of meaning - presuppositions - can be grounded in different aspects of the context in relation to an independent property of the trigger - Focus-sensitivity - which directly affects the discourse behavior of a trigger. The paper concludes with a discussion of some implications of the findings for linguistic theory, in particular anaphoricity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally assumed that ellipsis requires parallelism between the clause containing the ellipsis and some antecedent clause. We argue that the parallelism requirement generated by ellipsis must be applied in accordance with discourse structure: a matching antecedent clause must be found that locally c‐commands the clause containing the ellipsis in the discourse tree. We show that this claim makes several correct predictions concerning the interpretation of ellipsis, both in terms of the selection of the antecedent (in sluicing and verb phrase ellipsis), and in terms of the possible readings assuming a particular antecedent (in the ‘many‐clause’ puzzle and in antecedent‐contained deletion). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper centers on discourses where instead of accepting or rejecting an assertion, a hearer uses an epistemic possibility claim to bring a new subject matter to the original speaker's attention and consequently leads this speaker to change her mind and retract the initial claim. To analyze such resistance moves , we develop a new theory of attention-shift-induced belief change in which attention is modeled using granularity-levels or resolutions of logical space and refining a speaker's attention can allow her to combine more of her resolution-sensitive information and potentially change her beliefs. We integrate this theory into pre-existing machinery from the literature on formal models of discourse to account for both the informational and attentional dynamics in epistemic resistance discourses, and to lay out some of the formal prerequisites for a more comprehensive theory of resistance moves in general. Along the way, we introduce the new concept of a subject matter under public attention (SUP) and compare this with the more familiar concept of a question under discussion (QUD). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partee (2009) conjectures a formal semantics for natural language (hereafter, single-type semantics) that interprets CPs and referential DPs in the same semantic type: properties of situations. Partee's semantics contrasts with Montague semantics and its recent contenders (dubbed dual - or multi-type semantics) which assume distinct basic types for the semantic values of referential DPs (i.e. individuals) and CPs (i.e. propositions, truth-values, or sets of assignment functions). Partee's conjecture is motivated by results in event semantics and discourse representation theory, which support the indirect uni-directional shiftability between propositions and individuals. However, none of these results supports the identity of the types for individuals and propositions. Our paper improves upon the strength and scope of Partee's support for single-type semantics. In particular, it identifies a number of new arguments for the adoption of single-type semantics which display this semantics' greater unificatory and explanatory power. These arguments are based on the ability of single-type semantics to provide a uniform account of the distributional similarities between DPs and CPs, to explain the truth-evaluability of DP fragments, and to capture semantic inclusion relations between CPs and referential DPs. To further support single-type semantics, we defend it against a number of objections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrast is a discourse relation that involves a comparison between two situations that are similar in one way, but different in another. In this special issue on the relation of Contrast in discourse the following questions are explored. How is Contrast marked (by the speaker) and how is it identified (by the hearer)? What is the discourse function of establishing Contrast? How do we account for the similarities as well as the differences between different types of linguistic tools and what cross‐linguistic variation do we find? The present article serves as a brief introduction to the studies presented in this special issue on Contrast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new approach to discourse directionality, a phenomenon which, as is well known, is neither well defined nor adequately accounted for. Directionality is the property of (a part of) a discourse to be directed towards a ‘goal’, usually implying asymmetric functional relations between the discourse units involved. The direction of such an asymmetric discourse relation depends on whether the unit that provides the goalsatisfying value precedes or follows the unit which is subservient to it. Fundamental to our proposal is an analysis of directionality in terms of the topic-comment distinction. Within this framework, directionality is defined as a recursive property assigned to higher-order and lower-order discourse relations central to which is the assumption that they are realized by explicit or implicit topic-forming questions. It will be shown that the distinction that can be made between three types of directionality is precisely a function of three different ways of quantitative/qualitative subordination realized by subquestioning. Apart from the resulting theory providing a solution to the definition problem, it also provides an answer to the determination problem which implies that we attribute a criterion to distinguish dominant discourse units from subservient ones. In addition, the theory contributes to the much discussed issue of an adequate formalization of those discourse elaboration processes that do not involve a new partial value but merely support an already introduced ‘subject matter’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of imperatives differ in how they aim to derive the distributional and functional properties of this clause type. One point of divergence is how to capture the fact that imperative utterances convey the speaker's endorsement for the course of events described. Condoravdi & Lauer (2017) observe that conditionals with imperative consequents (conditionalized imperatives, CIs) are infelicitous as motivations of advice against doing something and take this as evidence for an analysis of imperatives as encoding speaker endorsement. We investigate CIs in further contexts and argue that their account in terms of preferential conflicts fails to capture the more general infelicity of CIs as motivations for or against doing something. We develop an alternative in which imperatives do not directly encode speaker preferences, but express modalized propositions and impose restrictions on the discourse structure (along the lines of Kaufmann, 2012). We show how this carries over to conditionalized imperatives to derive the behavior of CIs, and conclude with a discussion of more general problems regarding an implementation of conditional preferential commitments, an issue that can be avoided on our account of imperatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that echo wh -questions (E wh Qs) are autonomous grammatical structures, and that their distinctive formal properties determine their semantics and pragmatics. Echo wh -sentences contain a wh -phrase in which the wh -element is narrowly focused, and a phrasal Q operator. Wh -phrase and Q operator determine a question semantics. Focus on wh determines the discourse appropriateness conditions for E wh Qs, namely that an answer to the question be given in the context. A compositional analysis is provided that derives this interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In American English, the intensifier totally presents a PRAGMATIC use, in which it strengthens the speaker's commitment towards the utterance (e.g. 'The Bulls will totally make the playoffs'). This use has received considerably less attention than the canonical LEXICAL contribution of the adverb (e.g. 'the glass is totally full'). First, I rely on three acceptability studies to show that pragmatic totally is used only in discourse moves that allow for the possibility of not adding p to the Common Ground of the conversation--that is, subjective, outlandish and responsive assertions. Second, I propose that totally flags speaker's meta-conversational belief that every continuation of the exchange should involve the addition of p, framing the analysis within Farkas & Bruce (2010)'s discourse model. The proposal allows us to account in a unified way for the different effects that pragmatic totally contributes, highlighting the intensifier as a window into how declarative sentences with different kinds of content--subjective, objective, outlandish--structure the conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The property of projection poses a challenge to formal semantic theories, due to its apparent non-compositional nature. Projected content is therefore typically analyzed as being different from and independent of asserted content. Recent evidence, however, suggests that these types of content in fact closely interact, thereby calling for a more integrated analysis that captures their similarities, while respecting their differences. Here, we propose such a unified, compositional semantic analysis of asserted and projected content. Our analysis captures the similarities and differences between presuppositions, anaphora, conventional implicatures and assertions on the basis of their information structure, that is, on basis of how their content is contributed to the unfolding discourse context. We formalize our analysis in an extension of the dynamic semantic framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT)--called Projective DRT (PDRT)--that employs projection variables to capture the information-structural aspects of semantic content; different constellations of such variables capture the differences between the different types of projected and asserted content within a single dimension of meaning. We formally derive the structural and compositional properties of PDRT, as well as its semantic interpretation. By instantiating PDRT as a mature semantic formalism, we argue that it paves way for a more focused investigation of the information-structural aspects of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In discourse, frequently the truth value of a proposition is an issue under discussion. When speakers determine the actual truth value of an issue, they often mark this with phonetic focus on the finite verb. The phonetic focus in these utterances is argued to be a contrastive marking, signaling a contrast between the unspecified modality of some information in an earlier state and the determined truth value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a parallelism between contrastive marking and evidential marking with respect to their distribution among adjunct clauses. I take this fact to show that both contrastive marking and evidential marking express some attitude towards a closed proposition, following Johnstons (1994) analysis that the semantics of temporal and if-clauses involve event quantification while that of because-clauses is a relation between two particular events. Furthermore, this association between the implicature and the attitude-holder cannot be established in certain constructions, namely adjunct clauses and relative clauses. Hence, I argue that the computation of contrastive marking involves an island-sensitive movement of an operator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]