Judith Tonhauser (University of Stuttgart) will present a colloquium. Please note that this colloquium is taking plac e at a different time\; i.e.\, in the morning\, from 9:00 am - 10:30 am.
Click to join Zoom meeting. The passcode is 635410. (The meet ing ID is 647 6334 5823.)
Projection variability in Eng lish and Paraguayan Guaraní
Projective content is utterance content that speakers may be committed to even when the content occurs embe dded under negation or in a polar question. Presuppositions and conventiona l implicatures are well-known projective contents (e.g.\, Chierchia & McCon nell-Ginet 1990\, Potts 2005). For instance\, the content of the complement (CC) of “know” in (1) is taken to be projective content (specifically\, a presupposition) because speakers are typically taken to be committed to the truth of the CC\, that it’s raining\, not just when uttering the affirmati ve matrix sentence in (1a)\, but also when uttering the question in (1b) or the negated sentence in (1c).
(1) a. Kim knows that it’s raining.
b. Does Kim know that it’s raining?
c. Kim doesn’t know that it’s r
aining.
By contrast\, the CC of “think” in (2) is not projective beca use speakers are not typically taken to be committed to the truth of the CC \, regardless of whether the speaker utters (2a)\, (2b)\, or (2c).
(2
) a. Kim thinks that it’s raining.
b. Does Kim think that it’s raining
?
c. Kim doesn’t think that it’s raining.
In this talk\, I draw on the results of a series of empirical investigations of projective conten t in English and Paraguayan Guaraní to show that projection is not a binary property of utterance content\, but rather a gradient one\; that is\, utte rance content doesn’t just project or not\, but there is gradience in the p rojection of utterance content (Tonhauser\, Beaver\, and Degen 2018\, Tonha user 2020\, Tonhauser & Degen under review\, Degen & Tonhauser ms). These r esults have implications for projection analyses in that such analyses not only have to predict the gradient nature of projection\, but they also have to predict cross-linguistic similarities in projection variability. Empiri cal investigations of projection reveal by-item and by-participant variabil ity regardless of the investigative mode (e.g.\, one-on-one elicitation wit h relatively few native speakers\, web-based judgment collections with hund reds of participants). I will reflect on how such variability impacts resea rch on projection\, but also research on meaning more generally.
Refe rences:
Chierchia\, Gennaro\, and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1990. Meanin
g and grammar. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Degen\, Judith and Judith Tonhaus
er. ms. Prior probability predicts projection.
Potts\, Christopher. 20
05. The logic of conventional implicatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press
.
Tonhauser\, Judith. 2020. Projection variability in Paraguayan Guara
ní. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 38: 1263–1302.
Tonhauser\,
Judith\, David Beaver\, and Judith Degen. 2018. How projective is projectiv
e content? Gradience in projectivity and at-issueness. Journal of Semantics
35: 495-542.
Tonhauser\, Judith and Judith Degen. under review. Are t
here factive predicates? An empirical investigation. https://ling.auf.net/l
ingbuzz/005360