Restriction and Saturation

by Sandra Chung and William A. Ladusaw

• ISBN13: 9780262532549
• ISBN10: 0262532549
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

With this study of Maori and Chamorro, Sandra Chung and William Ladusaw make a valuable contribution to the growing literature on the formal semantic analysis of non-Indo-European languages. Their ultimate focus is on how the study of these Austronesian languages can illuminate the alternatives for semantic interpretation and their interaction with syntactic structure. Revisiting the analysis of indefiniteness in terms of restricted free variables, they claim that some varieties of indefinites are better analyzed by taking restriction and saturation to be fundamental semantic operations. Chapters examine the general topic of modes of composition (including predicate restriction and syntactic versus semantic saturation), types of indefinite determiners in Maori, and object incorporation in Chamorro (including discussions of the extra object and restriction without saturation). The authors' goal is that the two case studies they offer, and their larger focus on modes of composition, will contribute to a broader account of the interaction of form, position, and semantic interpretation.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Modes of Composition	1	(20)
The Calculus of Saturation	2	(2)
Predicate Restriction	4	(2)
Syntactic versus Semantic Saturation	6	(5)
Saturation at the Event Level	11	(2)
Scope Constraints	13	(1)
The Property Theory of Indefinites	14	(4)
Summary	18	(3)
Indefinites in Maori	21	(54)
A Dash of Maori Grammar	23	(3)
The Syntax of He and Tetahi	26	(4)
The Semantic Similarity of He and Tetahi	30	(10)
Some Semantic Contrasts	40	(5)
Our Account	45	(10)
Two Further Semantic Contrasts	55	(10)
A Dash of Pragmatics	65	(4)
Conclusion	69	(6)
Object Incorporation in Chamorro	75	(56)
A Dash of Chamorro Grammar	77	(4)
Incorporation	81	(4)
The Incorporated Object Is Semantically Incomplete	85	(3)
The Extra Object	88	(6)
The Extra Object Is a Semantic Argument	94	(13)
Our Account	107	(11)
Restriction without Saturation	118	(7)
Conclusion	125	(6)
Appendix A The Syntax of Chamorro Incorporation	131	(18)
A.1 Previous Approaches	131	(3)
A.2 Some Preliminary Results	134	(7)
A.3 Some More Conclusive Results	141	(5)
A.4 The Attachment Site of the Extra Object	146	(3)
Appendix B Maori and Chamorro	149	(4)
Notes	153	(10)
References	163	(8)
Index	171