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This paper explores the semantics of German final clauses introduced by um and damit against the background of their combinatorial potential with attitude verbs. While final clauses are usually seen as expressing the motivation behind some action, the frequent modification of preferential attitudes like hope or want presents a puzzle. This paper discusses two common paraphrases as a basis for a semantic analysis of final clauses. The attitude data turn out to be challenging for both of them. The paper proposes a tentative solution for the problem by assuming that intentional action implies the same kind of attitude holder that is evoked by preferential attitudes., Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, Vol. 26 (2022): Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung

The starting point of the present paper is the assumption that negative sentences introduce two propositional discourse referents, one for the negative proposition and one for the negated, positive proposition. Both propositional discourse referents can be picked up by propositional anaphors, resulting in potential ambiguity (e.g. Ernie: Cookie Monster didn’t eat the cookie. Bert: Kermit believes that[CM didn’t eat the cookie / CM ate the cookie]). We report an explorative experimental study on the interpretation of propositional anaphors that are polarity-ambiguous between a resolution with the negative and the positive propositional discourse referent. We employed two different methods, a direct task (forced choice) and a more indirect task (acceptability rating), which yielded mixed results. Taken together, the findings of our study point to a preference for resolving polarity-ambiguous propositional anaphors with the negative propositional discourse referent and they demonstrate the necessity of methodological variety., Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, Vol 23 No 1 (2019): Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 23