Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses
A cherished semantic universal is that determiners are conservative (Barwise & Cooper 1981; Keenan & Stavi 1986). Well-known problem cases are only (if it has determiner uses) and certain uses of proportional determiners like many (Westerståhl 1985). Fortuny (2017), in a retracted contributi...
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| Format: | Article |
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Oxford University Press (OUP)
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122462 |
| _version_ | 1826204522519724032 |
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| author | Keenan, Edward L von Fintel, Kai |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Keenan, Edward L von Fintel, Kai |
| author_sort | Keenan, Edward L |
| collection | MIT |
| description | A cherished semantic universal is that determiners are conservative (Barwise & Cooper 1981; Keenan & Stavi 1986). Well-known problem cases are only (if it has determiner uses) and certain uses of proportional determiners like many (Westerståhl 1985). Fortuny (2017), in a retracted contribution to this journal, proposed a new constraint (the Witness Set Constraint) to replace Conservativity. He claimed that his constraint is satisfied by only and the Westerståhl-many, thus correctly allowing the existence of these non-conservative determiners, whilst it is not satisfied by unattested non-conservative determiners (such as allnon). In fact, we show here that only does not satisfy Fortuny’s Witness Set Constraint (nor does Westerståhl-many, which we leave to the readers to convince themselves of). Upon reflection, it turns out that the reason is simple: the Witness Set Constraint is in fact equivalent to Conservativity. There simply cannot be non-conservative determiners that satisfy the Witness Set Constraint. We consider further weakening of the Witness Set Constraint but show that this would allow unattested determiners. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:56:52Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/122462 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:56:52Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1224622022-09-28T11:04:07Z Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses Keenan, Edward L von Fintel, Kai Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy A cherished semantic universal is that determiners are conservative (Barwise & Cooper 1981; Keenan & Stavi 1986). Well-known problem cases are only (if it has determiner uses) and certain uses of proportional determiners like many (Westerståhl 1985). Fortuny (2017), in a retracted contribution to this journal, proposed a new constraint (the Witness Set Constraint) to replace Conservativity. He claimed that his constraint is satisfied by only and the Westerståhl-many, thus correctly allowing the existence of these non-conservative determiners, whilst it is not satisfied by unattested non-conservative determiners (such as allnon). In fact, we show here that only does not satisfy Fortuny’s Witness Set Constraint (nor does Westerståhl-many, which we leave to the readers to convince themselves of). Upon reflection, it turns out that the reason is simple: the Witness Set Constraint is in fact equivalent to Conservativity. There simply cannot be non-conservative determiners that satisfy the Witness Set Constraint. We consider further weakening of the Witness Set Constraint but show that this would allow unattested determiners. 2019-10-08T13:53:58Z 2019-10-08T13:53:58Z 2018-01 2017-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0167-5133 1477-4593 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122462 von Fintel, Kai and Edward L. Keenan. "Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses." Journal of Semantics 35, 1 (January 2018): 207–217 © 2018 The Author(s) 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 10.1093/JOS/FFX018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffx018 Journal of Semantics Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press (OUP) Prof. von Fintel via Ece Turnator |
| spellingShingle | Keenan, Edward L von Fintel, Kai Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses |
| title | Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses |
| title_full | Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses |
| title_fullStr | Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses |
| title_full_unstemmed | Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses |
| title_short | Determiners, Conservativity, Witnesses |
| title_sort | determiners conservativity witnesses |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122462 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT keenanedwardl determinersconservativitywitnesses AT vonfintelkai determinersconservativitywitnesses |