10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 1
Appositives in modal contexts
Supple supplements:
Appositives in modal contexts
– Appositions like , a woman, , as in that she,
a woman, talks to them about mathematics :
are they building blocks of meaning?
– “no,” say Potts and Harris (2009);
“yes,” says Schlenker (2010a and 2010b).
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 2
Appositives in modal contexts
non-speaker orientation (perspectival shift):
Pragmatics or Semantics?
(1) Sheila believes that Chuck, a psychopath, is fit to
watch the kids. (s.o.)
(2) Sheila believes that Chuck, a sweetheart if ever
there was one, is fit to watch the kids. (non-s.o.)
(1) from Potts (2005), (2) from Amaral et al. (2007).
Harris-Potts (2009): a non-speaker-oriented appositive
describes – at the level of expressive content – a
commitment of, typically, an attitude holder
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 3
Appositives in modal contexts
non-speaker orientation:
Two strategies, configurational and contextual:
(S) The source of non-speaker-oriented readings ... is
semantic binding.
(P) The source of non-speaker-oriented readings ... is
the interaction of a variety of pragmatic factors.
(Harris and Potts 2009: 528)
Let us distinguish a semantic and a pragmatic strategy.
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 4
Appositives in modal contexts
Schlenker (2010a, 2010b):
Defends the semantic strategy
– Argues that NRRs (nonrestrictive relative clauses)
can be interpreted in the scope of “other operators”
and “semantically interact with them”
– Data: Subjonctif and Sequence of Tense
– NRRs convey a mix of assertion and presupposition:
they are “easy to accommodate” (translucency)
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 5
Appositives in modal contexts
My plan:
Defend the semantic strategy by
– countering the Harris-Potts counterarguments
– supplying novel data and novel arguments:
Appositives in downward entailing modal contexts;
de dicto readings predominate, and predictably so
– show how the interpretive effects of appositives
can be captured through definedness conditions
on functions from worlds, i.a., individual concepts
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 6
Appositives in modal contexts
Countering the Harris-Potts counterarguments I
– They claim: non-speaker-oriented readings are
available when appositives are in “matrix clauses”
(3) I am increasingly worried about my roommate.
She seems to be growing paranoid.
a. The other day, she told me that we need to watch out
for the mailman, a possible government spy.
b. The other day, she refused to talk with the mailman,
a possible government spy.
Schlenker (2010b): refuse might well be an attitude verb
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 7
Appositives in modal contexts
Countering the Harris-Potts counterarguments I
– Yes, refuse creates an intensional context:
(4) Goddess Parvati, wife of God Shiva, lonely during one
of her husband’s long absences, molds a son from mud.
Ganesh grows up, and one day, Parvati tells him to guard
the front door and not let anybody in while she bathes.
a. Shiva returns home. Ganesh refuses to let his father in,
and Shiva beheads him.
b. Shiva returns home. Ganesh refuses to let the intruder in,
and Shiva beheads him.
(4a) is true on de re but false on de dicto, (4b) conversely
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 8
Appositives in modal contexts
Countering the Harri-Potts counterarguments II
– A trickier case:
(5) My brother Sid hates school. He puts off his homework,
a complete waste of time, to the last minute.
– Two ways to salvage the semantic strategy:
1 The verb put off is an attitude verb in disguise.
2 The appositive is a piece of quotation in disguise
(as suggested more generally by Anand 2007).
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 9
Appositives in modal contexts
Countering the Harri-Potts counterarguments II
Way 1 predicts that a non-speaker-orientation reading
is unavailable if the verb cannot be an attitude verb:
(5) b. (?) My brother Sid hates school. His homework,
a complete waste of time, earns him bad grades.
Way 1 also predicts that there can be a de re /de dicto
ambiguity in a put off context – and there can (?):
(6) The Senate has postponed the most important bill
ever presented to it.
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 10
Appositives in modal contexts
Countering the Harri-Potts counterarguments II
Way 2 appeals to a mechanism of concealed quotation
which can affect descriptions generally:
(7) The ship that could not sink sank on her maiden voyage
in April 1912.
Geurts and Maier (2005): Pieces of quote create local
dicendi contexts with contextually anchored sources
(for (7), the White Star Line; for (5)/(8), my brother Sid)
(8) My brother Sid hates school. He puts off his homework,
“a complete waste of time”, to the last minute.
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 11
Appositives in modal contexts
Concealed Quotation cont’d: a spoken parallel
Huey alludes to a previous utterance of a silly, useless
toy train by US expressing the content of a toy train
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 12
Appositives in modal contexts
Back to plan: Defend semantic strategy by
supplying novel data and novel arguments
Recall (1) and (2) – here, (9a) and (9b) – and the shift in
perspective from speaker- to non-speaker-orientation:
(9) a. Sheila believes that Chuck, a psychopath, is fit to
watch the kids.
b. Sheila believes that Chuck, a sweetheart if ever there
was one, is fit to watch the kids.
Harris and Potts do a corpus study of appositives under
attitudes and find a bias for speaker-oriented readings
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 13
Appositives in modal contexts
But: all their attitudes are upward entailing
(if at all monotone: believe, say, claim; ask, etc.)
However, once we turn to downward entailing attitudes
like surprised, the picture is reversed: there is a bias for
non-speaker-oriented readings, as in (10a).
(10) a. Mary is surprised that John, a Laestadian,
wears a necktie.
Here the appositive appears to interact with the attitude
and to constrain its argument proposition (intuition:
worlds where John is not a L. are not to be counted)
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 14
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts I
In fact, there is not a substantive difference between
(10a) and (10b), with a conjunct instead.
(10) a. Mary is surprised that John, a Laestadian,
wears a necktie.
b. Mary is surprised that John is a Laestadian
and wears a necktie.
True, there is a distinction between background and
foreground, or focus; between old and recent belief
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 15
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts I
According to Harris and Potts (2009), (10a) means the
same as (10c) in the dimension of descriptive content
and implicates (10d) in the expressive dimension
(10) a. Mary is surprised that John, a Laestadian,
wears a necktie.
c. Mary is surprised that John wears a necktie.
d. Mary believes that John is a Laestadian.
But does (10a) entail (10c)?
Intuitively, no more, no less than does (10b) ...
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 16
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics I
According to standard analyses of surprise predicates,
(10b) should not entail (10c).
(10) b. Mary is surprised that John is a Laestadian and
wears a necktie.
c. Mary is surprised that John wears a necktie.
Asher (1987): negative factives like surprised satisfy
weakened downward entailment
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 17
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics I
However, the facts are not so clear: Surprise predicates
can seem not to entail downward, even to entail upward
(11) a. John is surprised that Mary won a medal.
b. John is surprised that Mary won a bronze medal.
(12) a. John is surprised that she is a conservationist and
a hunter.
b. John is surprised that she is a hunter.
Anyway, analysts (von Fintel 1999, Sharvit 2002, ... Rooij
2006) concur in predicting weak downward entailment
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 18
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics I
Because: The basic truth condition is that the
complement proposition is a subset of something
(unexpectation worlds), or has an empty intersection
with something (expectation worlds), cf. Sharvit 2002:
And that is easier the stronger the proposition P(w) is.
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 19
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics II
To explain the apparent failure to entail downward, it is
customary to appeal to a contextual parameter (which it
is hard to keep constant from premiss to test conclusion)
Kadmon and Landman (1993: 381):
To be surprised that A is always relative to a certain perspective on
A, a perspective that determines ... in virtue of what it is surprising.
The perspective is a contextually determined parameter ... enters
into the semantics of surprised and affects the truth conditions ...
Perspectives can be at least partly specified by explicit linguistic text
...
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 20
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics: Contextual Perspectives
Specifying perspectives: relevant, in-virtue-of properties
implied – and spelt out
(13) – I can’t get over that she1 married HIM2.
– A fossil of 56, you mean?
– No, a UN Messenger of Peace.
(14) – I can’t believe she’s divorcing HIM.
– Yeah, such a rich man.
– No, such a NICE man!
1
Catherine Zeta-Jones
2
Michael Douglas
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 21
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics: Contextual Perspectives
Specifying perspectives: relevant properties implied II
(thanks to Regine Eckardt for the idea)
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 22
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics: Formalisation
Kai von Fintel (1999) models the contextual perspective
in terms of two parameters
Simplifying and adjusting:
are those relevant worlds compatible
with a’s beliefs that a most expects
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 23
Appositives in modal contexts
Surprise Semantics: and appositives
It is natural to think of fa(w) as the intersection of a set
of propositions, e.g., the proposition that John is a fossil
of 56, such a rich man, or a Laestadian, or that Mary is a
conservationist.
Or that the topic time day is Good Friday:
(15) Bjarne was in Hamburg on Good Friday in 1984
and was outraged that the brothels were open.
And if you don’t trust the context, you may want to use
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 24
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts II
... appositives. Idea:
They provide a means to ensure that a thing referred to
in a modal context retains its relevant properties across
the modal space
(16) Maria explains that the students are surprised that
she, a woman, talks to them about natural sciences.
(17) She became accustomed to the double-takes from
residents and male firefighters who were surprised
that she, a female, could head the station.
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 25
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts II
Strong evidence that they help build propositions:
Surprise contexts are not closed when we weaken them
(18) In John 4 Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman and asked for a drink.
She had two things against her: she was a woman, and a Samaritan.
a. She was surprised that he, a Jewish man, spoke to
her, a woman of Samaria.
b. She was surprised that he, a Jew, spoke to her, a
Samaritan.
c. She was surprised that he, a man, spoke to her, a
woman.
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 26
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts II
If appositives do not contribute to the nonmon context,
the missing inferences are mysterious: (18a–c) should be
equivalent truth-conditionally, which they are not
(Caveat – appeal to discourse relations: it could be argued
that experiencer-oriented appositives in attitude contexts are
commonly intended and interpreted as explanations; if the
complex appositives in (18a) provide full explanations, the
simple ones in (18b and c) cannot be expected to do so too.
After all, the semantics of surprised refers to contextually
determined relevant beliefs, and the appositives could be
taken to supply those by general pragmatic principles)
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 27
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts II
A note on old and new information:
The second appositive in (18a) represents old information –
both regarding the global common ground and regarding the
belief state of the experiencer:
(18) In John 4 Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman and asked for a drink.
She had two things against her: she was a woman, and a Samaritan.
a. She was surprised that he, a Jewish man, spoke to
her, a woman of Samaria.
We know that she knew that she was a woman of Samaria.
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 28
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts II
Why bias for non-speaker-orientation in mon contexts?
Heim (to appear):
For all we can tell, every determiner may be construed with a covert
restrictor in addition to its overt one and thus apply to an effectively
narrowed set of contextually relevant or salient entities. We just
don’t see this as clearly with some determiners as with others.
the, along with every and no, is not upward monotone, so covert
restrictors weaken the presupposition or assertion, giving an
otherwise ... false claim a chance to be felicitous and true.
The same would apply to appositives in modal contexts.
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 29
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives in Surprise Contexts II
Why bias for non-speaker-orientation in mon contexts?
– Because here the appositives serve to weaken the claim.
If that is so, we expect negated mon modal predicates to
show a propensity for non-speaker-orientation as well, and:
(19) Mary could not believe that she, a virgin, would have a
child.
I conclude that appositives can help build propositions.
– But how?
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 30
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
– By adding definedness conditions on concepts
(functions from worlds: individual concepts, propositions)
– As Beaver and Krahmer (2001) do, we must go intensional
Let us build the meaning of (20):
(20) surprised that Mary, a virgin, is pregnant.
Assume an abstract appositive functor (like “,  ,”),
:
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 31
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
It takes a “property” (function from individuals to propositions)
and gives an operation on partial individual concepts
First, composed with “(a) virgin” it gives
Then, composed with “Mary” this gives
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 32
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
Partial individual concepts like this are lifted to functions from
“properties” to propositions by the abstract filter function
This DP meaning can be used from a post-QR position,
applying to a “property” like
to give
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 33
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
the partial proposition that Mary, a virgin, is pregnant:
This can serve as the first argument of an attitude like
Ø
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 34
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
– resulting in:
This is to be surprised that Mary, a virgin, is pregnant.
That she is a virgin is a definedness condition but it acts like a
conjunct in the surprise context. Note: this is de dicto
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 35
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
– and speaker-oriented readings can be treated as
de re readings using an abstract actualiser:
– I use a designated variable for the actual world, v.
@ is needed for de re readings of descriptions in general, but
in particular for cases like
(21) Mary is surprised that John, a notorious casanova,
betrays her.
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 36
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
The partial proposition that John, a notorious casanova,
betrays Mary is
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 37
Appositives in modal contexts
Appositives as traditional presuppositions
Since the actualiser @ can apply below an appositive,
it is predicted that we can have de re definite descriptions
with de dicto appositives – and this seems to be borne out:
(22) Thoas wants Iphigenia to sacrifice her own brother,
a stranger who has tried to steal the statue of Artemis.
Thoas is not yet aware that Orestes is Iphigenia’s brother.
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 38
Appositives in modal contexts
Summing up I
I have argued that non-speaker-oriented interpretation
is a semantic phenomenon (the “semantic strategy”)
– The Harris-Potts (2009) finding that such readings are
available in nonmodal contexts was argued to be faulty;
cf. Hintikka (1973: 214):
Surprisingly often modal notions are tacitly being
considered in apparently nonmodal contexts.
– The Harris-Potts (2009) finding that such readings are rare
was argued to be based on a biased sample of attitudes
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10.08.2010
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 39
Appositives in modal contexts
Summing up II
... such readings are not rare in mon modal contexts
– Prime piece of evidence that appositives can help build
propositions: weakening them fails to preserve truth
(the Samaritan woman – Jewish man case)
– A theory allowing appositives to help build propositions:
they are definedness conditions on partial concepts,
ultimately on partial propositions
– In mon modal contexts, read de dicto, they act as
reminders of relevant properties
Kjell Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
slide 40
Appositives in modal contexts
Outlook
Other nonrestrictive adjuncts:
(23) The pharmacist was surprised that this old woman was
interested in condoms.
(24) My friends are surprised that shy and sweet me is
learning self defense.
(25) He is not so rash or so mad as to desire that she
who is so good love him who is so little worthy.
(26) She was startled to see the devoted detective Mickey
Mouse shake hands with his ruthless rival Black Pete.
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