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SUMMARY:Definiteness and Determinacy - Prof. David Beaver\, The University
  of Texas at Austin
DTSTART:20140515T110000Z
DTEND:20140515T130000Z
UID:TALK52621@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:37780
DESCRIPTION:David Beaver\,   The University of Texas at Austin\n  (Based o
 n joint work with Elizabeth Coppock\, University of Gothenburg)\n\nOn Russ
 ell's theory of the definite/indefinite distinction\, as on most contempor
 ary theories\, articles make an essential contribution to the meaning of m
 ost utterances. The typical absence of explicit marking of that distinctio
 n in some languages\, e.g. Russian\, Korean\, Hindi or Mandarin\, would th
 en appear to be a peculiar lacuna. How come the absence doesn't hamper the
  ability of speakers of those language's to express and distinguish singul
 ar and existential propositions?\n\nThis paper distinguishes between defin
 iteness and determinacy. Definiteness is seen as a morphological category 
 which\, in English\, marks a (weak) uniqueness presupposition\, while dete
 rminacy consists in denoting an individual. Both definite and indefinite d
 escriptions are argued to be fundamentally predicative\, presupposing uniq
 ueness but not existence\, and to acquire existential import through gener
 al type-shifting operations that apply not only to definites\, but also in
 definites and possessives. The type-shifting rules are exactly the same as
  those independently motivated for typically article-less languages\, Russ
 ian\, etc..Thus\, on the view I will describe\, the issue of whether a lan
 guage typically marks definiteness is separated from the question of how w
 e choose between determinate and indeterminate readings.\n\nQuite apart fr
 om making the existence of languages like Russian seem unsurprising\, the 
 resulting theory explains a range of new data that no previous theory of d
 efinites captures. This data involves interactions between definites and s
 uperlatives\, and between definites and exclusives like "only". On natural
  assumptions about exclusives\, both Russellian and Strawsonian analyses o
 f definites fail to predict any difference between (i) and (ii) or between
  (ii) and (iii) as regards the number of talks that will be given\, while 
 the minimal theory I will describe correctly predicts that while (i) and (
 iii) imply one talk\, (ii) implies more than one.\n\nA) David won't give t
 he talk today.     --> exactly one talk.\nB) David won't give the only tal
 k today.  -->   more than one talk\nC) Ash won't fall asleep in the only t
 alk today. --> exactly one  talk.\n\n\nNote: For those seeking further mot
 ivation or details of the formal proposal\, a draft paper is available at 
 <http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/mViOGEzY/dd_full_paper.pdf>. Comments
  are welcome!\n
LOCATION:Board room\, 9 West Rd (English Faculty)
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