Constraints on numerical expressions / Chris Cummins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cummins, Chris, author.

Series:

Oxford studies in semantics and pragmatics ; 5. (NL-LeOCL)369431189.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grammar, Comparative and general--Number.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

xii, 212 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY ; Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2015.

Summary:

This book considers how expressions involving number are used by speakers and understood by hearers. A speaker's choice of expression can be a complex problem even in relatively simple-looking domains. In the case of numerical expressions, there are often many choices that would be semantically acceptable: for instance, if 'more than 200' is true, then so is 'more than 199', 'more than 150', and 'more than 100', among others. A speaker does not choose between these options arbitrarily but also does not consistently follow any simple rule. The hearer is interested not just in what has been said but also in any further inferences that can be drawn. Chris Cummins offers a set of criteria that individually influence the speaker's choice of expression. The process of choosing what to say is then treated as a problem of multiple constraint satisfaction. This approach enables multiple different considerations, drawn from principles of semantics, philosophy, psycholinguistics, and the psychology of number, simultaneously to be integrated within a single coherent account. This constraint-based model offers novel predictions about usage and interpretation that are borne out experimentally and in corpus research. It also explains problematic data in numerical quantification that have previously been handled by more stipulative means, and offers a potential line of attack for addressing the problem of the speaker's choice in more general linguistic environments. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

2 Constructing a constraint-based model 10

2.1 Introduction 10

2.2 OT modelling of the speaker's choice of utterance 12

2.3 Constitution of an OT system 15

2.4 Proposed constraints and their empirical basis 18

2.5 Additional potential constraints 47

2.6 Summary 51

3 Deriving predictions from the constraint-based account 52

3.1 Constraint interaction in classical OT 53

3.2 Alternative formalisms 58

3.3 The effect of constraint interaction on the speaker 69

3.4 Modelling the effects of constraints on the hearer 79

3.5 Summary 83

4 Towards a pragmatic account of superlative quantifier usage 84

4.1 Overview 84

4.2 Problems with the traditional view of comparative and superlative quantifiers 86

4.3 A semantically modal account of superlative quantifier meaning 88

4.4 Some empirical investigations of quantifier meaning 90

4.5 A pragmatic account of superlative quantifier meaning 95

4.6 Demonstrating the complexity of non-strict comparison 98

4.7 Consequences of the complexity of non-strict comparison 103

4.8 Experimental evidence in favour of the disjunctive account of superlative quantifiers 105

4.9 A constraint-based account of, at least, superlative quantifiers 124

4.10 Summary 129

5 Scalar implicatures from numerically quantified expressions 130

5.1 Pragmatic enrichments of bare numerals 130

5.2 The failure of implicature for comparative and superlative quantifiers 133

5.3 Implicatures predicted by the constraint-based account 136

5.4 Predicted effect of priming on implicature 143

5.5 Inferring the contextual activation of numerals 151

5.6 Summary 155

6 Corpus evidence for constraints on numerical expressions 156

6.1 Constraints and corpus frequencies 156

6.2 Predictions arising from markedness constraints 158

6.3 Some methodological issues in corpus research on numerically quantified expressions 161

6.4 Corpus evidence for the predictions on quantifier usage 164

6.5 Summary 175

7 Overview and outlook 177

7.1 The story so far 177

7.2 Evidential basis for the constraint-based model 179

7.3 Informativeness and the nature of numerical representations 181

7.4 Gradient priming effects 184

7.5 Extension to other domains of usage 185.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 204-210) and index.

ISBN:

9780199687916

0199687919

9780199687909

0199687900

OCLC:

905489139