Actuality inferences : causality, aspect, and modality / Prerna Nadathur.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nadathur, Prerna, author.

Series:

Oxford Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics

Oxford Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics ; v.15

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Compositionality (Linguistics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford, England : Oxford University Press, [2023]

Summary:

This book investigates the phenomenon of actuality inferences, in which claims of ability are interpreted as descriptions of actual events, instead of as descriptions of potentiality or possibility. The findings contribute to a growing body of research in which computational models serve as an analytic tool for lexical and compositional semantics.

Contents:

cover

seriespage

titlepage

copyright

Contents

General preface

Acknowledgements

List of glossing abbreviations

1 Introduction

1.1 Two ways of being able?

1.2 Actuality inferences

1.3 Framing the investigation

1.4 Causal dependence

1.5 Outline of the book

2 Setting the stage: Modality, aspect, and ability

2.1 Modality and aspect

2.2 Actuality entailments

2.3 Ability modals

2.4 Summary and outlook

3 Causal dependence in implicative inferences

3.1 Managing, specifically and gener(ic)ally

3.2 Implicative meaning

3.3 Modelling causal dependencies

3.4 A closer look at the catalyst proposal

3.5 Beyond manage

3.6 Causal necessity and sufficiency in implicatives

3.7 Conclusions and outlook

4 Variable implicativity in enough and too constructions

4.1 Preliminaries

4.2 Two approaches to enough and too

4.3 Enough/too inference patterns

4.4 Summary

5 The semantics of enough and too constructions

5.1 The basic semantic analysis

5.2 The necessity condition

5.3 Predictions for enough/too inferences

5.4 Dynamic properties and causal sufficiency

5.5 Causally optimal worlds

5.6 Summary

6 Aspect and actuality inferences

6.1 Lexical aspect

6.2 Aspectual coercion

6.3 Instantiative coercion

6.4 Enough/too complement inferences

6.5 Summary and outlook

7 Ability, actuality, and implicativity

7.1 An implicative structure for ability

7.2 Aspectual coercion for implicative able

7.3 Actuality, ability, and genericity

7.4 Ability, action, and possibility

7.5 Some open questions

7.6 Summary

8 Conclusion

Appendix A: Notes on causal necessity

Appendix B: Sources for naturally occurring examples

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Nadathur, Prerna Actuality Inferences

ISBN:

9780192666826

9780191945007

OCLC:

1373346755