刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《理论语言学》2023年第1-4期

THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS

Volume 49, Issue 1-4, June 2023

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THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS（SSCI三区，2022 IF：0.6，排名：143/194）2023年第1-4期共发文17篇。第1-2期发文8篇，包含1篇靶子论文和7篇对其的评论，内容围绕Wh-疑问句的动态语义框架展开；第3-4期发文9篇，包含1篇靶子论文、6篇对其的评论及2篇原作者的回应（其中有1篇回应是针对第1-2期靶子文章的），内容围绕手势和语音的象似性建模展开。欢迎转发扩散！

往期推荐：

目录

Issue 1-2

Target Article

■Wh-questions in dynamic inquisitive semantics, by Floris Roelofsen, Jakub Dotlačil, Pages 1–91.

Comments

■ Building trees, building bridges: compositionality in inquisitive semantics and syntactic cartography, by Valentina Bianchi, Silvio Cruschina, Pages 93–106.

■ A wishlist for future dynamic frameworks, by María Biezma, Pages 107–117.

■Towards dynamic inquisitive semantics of dialogue, by Maria Boritchev, Pages 119–125.

■ Fine-grained yet flat: on the usefulness of dynamic representations for questions, by Émile Enguehard, Pages 127–138.

■ Uniqueness requirements of wh-questions in discourse, by Haoze Li, Pages 514–540.

■ Quantifying Native Speakerism in Second Language (L2) Writing: A Study of Student Evaluations of Teaching, by Sei Lee, Qian Du, Pages 139–148.

■ Which answer resolves which reading of which question?, by Yasutada Sudo, Pages 149–165.

Issue 3-4

Target Article

■ The information status of iconic enrichments: modelling gradient at-issueness, by Kathryn Barnes, Cornelia Ebert, Pages 167–223.

Comments

■ Some remarks on the fine structure of ideophones and the meaning of structure, by Norbert Corver, Pages 225–238.

■ Gradient at-issueness, minimum relevance, and propositional prominence, by Daniel Gutzmann, Pages 239–247.

■ Gradient at-issueness versus uncertainty about binary at-issueness, by Todor Koev, Pages 249–260.

■ Gradient at-issueness and semiotic complexity in gesture: a response, by Schuyler Laparle, Pages 261–268.

■ On the typology of iconic contributions, by Philippe Schlenker, Pages 269–290.

■ At-issueness across modalities – are gestural components (more) at-issue in sign languages?, by Markus Steinbach, Pages 291–304.

Reply

■ Iconicity and gradient at-issueness: insights and future avenues, by Kathryn Barnes, Cornelia Ebert, Pages 305–318.

Reply to Comments on “Wh-questions in dynamic inquisitive semantics” (TL 49.1/2)

■ Dynamic inquisitive semantics—looking ahead and looking back, by Floris Roelofsen, Jakub Dotlačil, Pages 319–337.

摘要

Wh-questions in dynamic inquisitive semantics

Floris Roelofsen, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam,  Netherlands

Jakub Dotlačil, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Abstract This target article presents a type-theoretic dynamic inquisitive semantics framework, extending the first-order system presented in (Dotlačil, Jakub & Floris Roelofsen. 2019. Dynamic inquisitive semantics: Anaphora and questions. Sinn und Bedeutung 23. 365–382). Within this framework, we develop a compositional treatment of wh-questions whose basic premise is that a wh-phrase introduces a discourse referent u, just like non-interrogative indefinites do, and requires the presence of an operator in the left periphery of the clause which requests a witness for u, i.e., it raises an issue whose resolution requires identifying at least one individual that has all the properties ascribed to u. In previous work, it has been argued that a dynamic semantic analysis of questions is needed to account for anaphora with wh-antecedents and for certain kinds of intervention effects (Haida, Andreas. 2007. The indefiniteness and focusing of wh-words. Berlin: Humboldt University PhD thesis). Here, we further develop the general approach and argue that it has several additional benefits. Namely, it allows for a uniform treatment of single-wh and multiple-wh questions, it derives mention-some and mention-all readings in a principled way, as well as an often neglected partial mention-some reading in multiple-wh questions, it can capture certain constraints on the availability of mention-some readings, and the effects of number marking on which-phrases across single-wh and multiple-wh questions.

Key words dynamic semantics, inquisitive semantics, question semantics, multiple-wh questions, mention-some readings

Building trees, building bridges: compositionality in inquisitive semantics and syntactic cartography

Valentina Bianchi, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

Silvio Cruschina, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Introduction The target paper departs in various respects from previous analyses of wh-questions in static inquisitive semantics. On the one hand, it explicitly aims at providing a fully compositional analysis. On the other, the proposed dynamic extension introduces update expressions that semantically operate on contexts. Interestingly, the combination of these two ideas leads the authors (henceforth R&D) to add new layers on top of the compositional structure, which they identify with the 'clausal left pe-riphery' initially proposed in Rizzi(1997) and then revised in much following work in the cartographic framework (see the 20th anniversary overview in Rizzi and Bocci 2017).This convergence is congenial to the central tenet of syntactic cartography, namely, that the hierarchy of functional projections yields a transparent mapping at the syntax-semantics interface (Cinque and Rizzi 2010:76), where in our view 'transparency' means full compositionality the fundamental insight of Partee(1975).

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A wishlist for future dynamic frameworks

María Biezma, UMass Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

Introduction Much literature on inquisitive semantics is devoted to showing how results cashed out in other frameworks (mainly in Hamblin-style alternative semantics) can also be captured within this framework. In this spirit, developing a dynamic framework for inquisitive semantics is the natural next step. The target article by Roelofsen and Dotlacil  (henceforth R&D) proposes a dynamic framework for inquisitive semantics motivated by the treatment of (complex) wh-questions and building on results from donkey sentences (see also,e.g.,Haida 2007;Li 2021a,2021b for other dynamic approaches in this realm). As framework building, R&D is a valuable contribution for scholars working in Inquisitive Semantics and presents a stepping stone from which the framework can evolve.

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Towards dynamic inquisitive semantics of dialogue

Maria Boritchev, Orange Innovation, Lannion, France

Introduction In the target article Wh-questions in dynamic inquisitive semantics, Floris Roelofsen and Jakub Dotlacil, hereafter designated as "the authors", present the Type-Theoretical Dynamic Inquisitive Semantics  (Ingp) framework. This framework is the extension of the system presented in (Dotlacil and Roelofsen 2019). TTDIS is designed to achieve compositional treatment of wh-questions, and the target article is filled with extensive examples and argumentation of and for these treatments.

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Fine-grained yet flat: on the usefulness of dynamic representations for questions

Émile Enguehard, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Introduction Roelofsen and Dotlačil’s contribution illustrates the general applicability of dynamic approaches to question semantics, including when it comes to accounting for composition, as well as its potential for covering new empirical ground. In this note, I would like to emphasize one particular aspect of the idea which underlies much of the empirical parts of Roelofsen and Dotlačil’s argumentation, namely, the issue of how fine-grained question representations should be, which we can call the granularity of our theory of questions. As Roelofsen and Dotlačil briefly mention in their conclusion, their theory is highly granular, in a way that I will make clear below. I will argue that this property of dynamic approaches to questions opens a lot of analytical possibilities, and illustrate this by taking the example of how to analyse short answers.

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Uniqueness requirements of wh-questions in discourse

Haoze Li, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China/University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, USA

Introduction In their target paper, Roelofsen Dotlacil develops a type-theoretic dynamic inquisitive semantics framework (Inqp,for short). Ingp combines Inquisitive Semantics (Ciardelli et al.2018), which is a framework for studying questions, and Plural Compositional DRT (PCDRT, for short, Brasoveanu 2008,2010), which is a dynamic framework for studying plural anaphora. Like Inquisitive Semantics, a context in Ingp is modeled as a non-empty, downward closed set of information states; like PCDRT, an information state is modeled as a set of assignment worlds, i.e.,pairs consisting of a possible world and a set of assignments. Combining dynamicness and inquisitiveness allows Roelofsen Dotlacil to extend the dynamic machinery applying to indefinites in PCDRT to resolve a range of related empirical issues in questions, including mention-some and mention-all readings, pair-list readings, and uniqueness presuppositions.

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Which answer resolves which reading of which question?

Yasutada Sudo, Department of Linguistics, University College London, London, UK

Introduction Multiple wh-questions are considered to give rise to at least two types of reading,the pair-list reading and the single-pair reading. The target article focuses on the pair-list reading, noting in fn.8 that it is not entirely clear if the single-pair reading is to be accounted for as a separate reading. In this commentary, I will argue that the single-pair reading needs to be given a separate semantic representation, based on the observation that certain constructions only receive single-pair readings. The clearest among these, in my opinion, is nested which-phrases such as which novel by which English author (Elliott 2016;Higginbotham and May 1981). I will then discuss how this can be achieved in the proposed framework of dynamic inquisitive semantics,IngD.

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The information status of iconic enrichments: modelling gradient at-issueness

Kathryn Barnes, Institute of Linguistics, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Cornelia Ebert, Institute of Linguistics, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Abstract Linguistic structures can contribute different types of meaning alongside standard assertions, such as conventional implicatures and presuppositions, which have long been described as being non-at-issue meaning contributions. Although information status has long been handled as a binary opposition between non-at-issue and at-issue content, recent research suggests that a gradient approach may be more appropriate. Building on new – and in the formal linguistic framework so far mostly neglected – data targeting spoken and gestural iconicity, specifically iconic gestures and ideophones, this paper investigates the information status of such iconic contributions in spoken language and suggests a new theoretical concept of at-issueness by spelling it out as a gradient category. The paper highlights a range of factors which can affect the information status of iconic contributions, proposing a scale for iconic phenomena based on these factors. To formally model this scale, we propose an approach in which at-issueness is analysed as a gradient property based on a given structure-inherent at-issueness status and the corresponding proposition’s relevance to a Question Under Discussion in a given context. This analysis accounts for the variations in information status observed between different iconic enrichments and their impact on truth conditions and paves the way for an approach to Common Ground updates using this model. The analysis outlined here allows for a more nuanced understanding of non-at-issue content and its interaction with at-issue content and provides predictions which can guide further experimental work on information status and the factors that influence it.

Key words iconicity, at-issueness, gestures, ideophones

Some remarks on the fine structure of ideophones and the meaning of structure

Norbert Corver, Institute for Language Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Introduction Hierarchical structure, a core property of human language, is closely connected to the expression of meaning. A well-known illustration of this close bond between structure and meaning comes from syntactic ambiguity: the linear string John hit the dog with the stick has two different interpretations, where each reading corresponds to a different constituent structure: John [_VP hit [_NP the dog [_PP with the stick]]]—meaning:'John hit the dog that was carrying the stick'—and John [_VP hit [_NP the dog][_PP with the stick]]—meaning:'John hit the dog and he did so with the stick'. A second illustration of the meaning of structure comes from the semantic roles associated with noun phrases. For example, when the noun phrase the dog occupies the complement (i.e.,direct object)position of a transitive verb, as in John [_VP hit the dog], the dog is interpreted as the Theme-argument of the verb hit. However, when it occupies the subject position of the clause, as in The dog bit John, the semantic role of the dog is completely different; it then acts as an Agent-argument. A third illustration of the close relationship between structure and meaning comes from the interpretation of nouns like dog.When dog combines with the indefinite article a,or the numeral one, as in The car hit a/one dog, it typically gets a count-reading, which feels like the default interpretation. Interestingly, dog gets a mass-reading when it is part of a different nominal structure, specifically one lacking an indefinite article, or one in which it co-occurs with the quantifiers much or some, as in Look, there is(some/much) dog on the bumper of your car! A fourth and final illustration of the close relationship between structure and meaning comes from the following minimal pair: This is [a good solution of the problem],and This is [a hell of a problem]. Even though the bracketed noun phrases look quite similar superficially, their meaning is very different. In the former bracketed noun phrase, (of) the problem acts as the complement of the noun solution; in the latter bracketed noun phrase, however, the noun hell has a (metaphorical)-evaluative meaning rather than a referential one. It is the speaker of the utterance that assigns negative valence (hell)to the referent of the noun problem. That these two nominal expressions have different underlying structures is clear from the fact that they display different sub-extraction behavior: It is impossible to say: a problem which this is [a hell of(a)which],but completely fine to say: a problem which this is a good solution of which]; see den Dikken (1998:186).

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Gradient at-issueness, minimum relevance, and propositional prominence

Daniel Gutzmann, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

Introduction It is great to see that with their target article, Barnes and Ebert try to crack down on the binary notion of(non-)at-issueness. That at-issueness is a binary notion is an idea that,even though not explicitly defended, is rooted deeply in the semantic and pragmatic literature ever since Potts's introduction of the term in his 2005 book. In that work, Potts himself was not really interested in the pragmatics behind that notion and what it actually means for a proposition or some content to be >>at issue<<, and thus he built the distinction between at-issue and non-at-issue content (or to be precise, conventional implicated content)into the semantic system as deeply as the semantic type system. Hence, it is no wonder that he employed a binary distinction. However, even in the research that took up the notion of(non-)at-issueness and took a broader and more pragmatic view, the binarity of at-issueness was more or less carried over. And even though some people have hinted at the idea that at-issueness is a gradient rather than binary phenomenon (AnderBois et al.2015;Gutzmann 2017;Syrett and Koev 2014;Tonhauser et al.2018), it needed a paper like Barnes and Ebert's to distill these hints to deconstruct the assumption of binarity and build the foundations for a gradient notion of at-issueness. For this reason alone, their target article will have a huge impact and certainly inspire a lot of research that pushes the field forward. Therefore, there are many aspects in their paper worthwhile to comment and expand on. However, in this comment, I will focus solely on the core ideas of gradient at-issueness and will concentrate on three aspects:

1) the application of gradient at-issueness to non-iconic expressions, 

2) the minimum at-issueness requirement and some of its problems,

3) an extension of Barnes and Ebert's ideas to a competition-based model of at-issueness as (propositional)prominence.

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Gradient at-issueness versus uncertainty about binary at-issueness

Todor Koev, Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

Introduction In a thought-provoking paper entitled "The information status oficonic enrichments: Modeling gradient at-issueness", Barnes and Ebert argue against a binary opposition between at-issue versus non-at-issue content, which has been standardly assumed in semantics and pragmatics. Instead of binarity, the authors defend the idea that at-issueness is a gradient notion that comes in degrees. The empirical focus of their paper is two kinds of iconic enrichments to regular spoken language:iconic co-speech gestures, like BIG, and ideophones, like splish-splash. Two examples of sentences with such enrichments are cited in (1)-(2).

(1) Cornelia brought [a bottle]_BIG.

(2) The frog goes splish-splash up the stairs.

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Gradient at-issueness and semiotic complexity in gesture: a response

Schuyler Laparle, E-mail: [e-mail]

Introduction As the field of linguistics shifts toward a more embodied, multimodal understanding of language, we are given an opportunity to reconsider fundamental notions of what linguistic meaning is and how it works. Barnes and Ebert make an important contribution to this by using iconic expressions  (hand gestures and ideophones) to problematize a simple, binary notion of at-issueness. I will focus solely on the gesture portion of their analysis.

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On the typology of iconic contributions

Philippe Schlenker, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS – EHESS – CNRS), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France; PSL University, Paris, France; and New York University, New York, USA

Introduction Iconicity in general and iconic gestures in particular used to be relegated to the wastebasket of formal semantics and pragmatics. Not any more. Two successive movements radically changed the situation. First, the integration of gestures to discourse relations was analyzed in great formal detail within the tradition of DRT (e.g.Lascarides and Stone 2009a,2009b). Second, in a pioneering program, Ebert and Ebert 2014 specifically asked about the projection properties of co-speech gestures,  thus integrating gesture studies to vibrant debates in formal semantics/pragmatics on the division of meanings among at-issue and non-at-issue contents'-in our view, a momentous achievement.

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At-issueness across modalities – are gestural components (more) at-issue in sign languages?

Markus Steinbach, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

Introduction In their target article, Barnes and Ebert give experimental evidence for the non-at-issueness of gestural enrichments in iconic co-speech gestures and ideophones and show that the phenomena of iconic enrichment provide evidence for a theory of graded at-issueness. Barnes and Ebert argue that in spoken languages "these phenomena, which deal with the interplay of ordinary descriptive -and arbitrary -meaning contributions on the one hand and depictive -and hence iconic contributions on the other, are canonical cases of at-issue information interacting with non-at-issue information. Generally, in natural language,meaning is contributed by using language to describe what one intends to convey. Depictive enrichments add another layer. Since this meaning is of a different nature and often occurs simultaneously with what is being transmitted in the main channel (descriptively used speech), it brings in information of a different dimension, which is usually subordinated [...]Standardly, verbal information then transmits the main, at-issue information part of an utterance, and gesture the non-at-issue pieces of information"(p.176).

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Iconicity and gradient at-issueness: insights and future avenues

Kathryn Barnes, Institute of Linguistics, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Cornelia Ebert, Institute of Linguistics, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Introduction In our target article,we made the claim,based on experimental data on gestures and ideophones, that at-issueness is not a binary notion,but rather a gradient one. We showed how various factors can cause iconic enrichments to fall at different points along a scale of at-issueness. We then proposed a formalisation of this concept of at- issueness based on relevance to the Question Under Discussion(QUD). The responses to our article are, we hope, just the beginning of an interesting discussion not only on the nature of at-issueness and how to model this in formal semantics,but also on the role and contribution of a variety of iconic enrichments in natural language meaning. We would like to thank all the authors for their replies, which have brought us new insights into our research,suggested avenues for future research and raised issues in our current model of gradient at-issueness.

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Dynamic inquisitive semantics—looking ahead and looking back

Floris Roelofsen, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Jakub Dotlačil, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

Introduction We thank all commentators for their thoughtful contributions. Our response is divided into two sections. Section 1 looks ahead,discussing some of the open issues identified by the commentators for dynamic inquisitive semantics and tentatively suggesting how these issues may be addressed in future extensions and refinements of the framework. Section 2looks back, clarifying how dynamic inquisitive semantics builds on previous frameworks for question semantics.

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期刊简介

Theoretical Linguistics is an open peer review journal. Each issue contains one long target article about a topic of general linguistic interest, together with several shorter reactions, comments and reflections on it. With this format, the journal aims to stimulate discussion in linguistics and adjacent fields of study, in particular across schools of different theoretical orientations.

《理论语言学》是一本开放的同行评议期刊。每期都包含一篇有关普通语言学兴趣的长篇靶子论文和几篇对其的短篇评论或反思论文。本刊旨在通过这种形式来激发对语言学及相关领域的研究的讨论，尤其是不同理论导向下的学校间的讨论。

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