A Conditional Presuppositional Account for Evaluative Adverbs in Japanese Ai Kubota (Michigan State University) Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.msu.edu/⇠matsuiai 1. Factive Predicate Approach (Schreiber 1971),(Bellert 1977) • The factive predicate approach takes evaluative adverbs (EAs; fortunately, oddly, surprisingly, etc.) to be factive predicates: EAs take facts (true propositions) as their arguments. (1) Surprisingly, John has arrived. a. Asserted proposition 1: John has arrived. b. Asserted proposition 2: It is surprising that John has arrived. • According to this approach, this factivity is the reason why EAs cannot appear in questions. (2) *Has John surprisingly arrived? (Bellert 1977:(15)) • Sawada (1978) claims that Japanese EAs are also unacceptable in questions. (3) * Saiwai Fortunately sono that madarano pied fuefuki-ga piper-nom machijuu-no whole.town-gen nezumi-o rat-acc obikidashita lured.away no-desu it.is ka? Q ‘Did that pied piper fortunately lured rats in the town away?’ (Sawada 1978:(86)) • However, for Sawada (1978), this is not because of factivity, but multidimensionality: while the ques- tion operator takes a content (proposition) in the ‘propositional stratum’, EA meanings belong to the ‘attitudinal stratum’, thus cannot be incorporated into the question sentence. 2. Conditional Approach (Bonami & Godard 2008) • Bonami & Godard (2008) note that EAs in French can appear in questions (4) and the antecedent of conditionals (5). (See also Mayol & Castroviejo (2013) for Catalan and Spanish.) (4) Paul est-il, bizarrement, arrivé en retard? ‘Did Paul oddly arrive late?’ (Bonami & Godard 2008:(49-b)) (5) Si Paul est malencontreusement en retard, le patron sera furieux. ‘If Paul is unfortunately late, the boss will be furious.’ 9 Paul is late. (Bonami & Godard 2008:(15)) Cf. (5’) S’il est malheureux que Paul soit en retard, ça I’est encore plus que le patron le soit aussi. ‘If it is unfortunate that Paul is late, it is even worse that the boss is late too.’ ! Paul is late. (Bonami & Godard 2008:(14)) • Bonami & Godard (2008) propose that EA meanings are conditional (‘p ! unfortunate (p)’; not just ‘unfortunate (p)’). (6) Marie est malheureusement venue. ‘Unfortunately, Marie came.’ a. Main assertion: came(Marie) b. Ancillary commitment: came(Marie)! unfortunate(came(Marie)) • They further argue that an EA conveys an ancillary commitment of the speaker, which is independent of the assertion and the presupposition. 3. Japanese EAs • Japanese EAs, like French EAs, are acceptable in questions (7) (contra Sawada 1978, cf. (3)) and in the antecedent of conditionals (8). (7) A: ‘The Little Mermaid was told that she would melt into bubbles and disappear if she didn’t kill the prince. However, she couldn’t kill the person she loved.’ B: Ja, Then, fukooni-mo unfortunately kanojo-wa she-top shindeshimau die n-desu it.is ka? Q ‘Is she going to die, then?’ + ‘If she is going to die, that is unfortunate.’ (8) Moshi If zannennagara unfortunately shuuden-ni last.train-dat maniawanakattara make.it:neg:cond takushii-ni taxi-dat norinasai. ride:imp ‘If you unfortunately don’t make it for the last train, take a taxi.’ 9 You don’t make it for the last train. • Japanese EAs can be better analyzed by Bonami & Godard’s (2008) conditional approach than the factive predicate approach. However, . . . . What is the theoretical status of ancillary commitment? Are they the same as Potts’s (2005) conventional implicatures (CIs)? . Furthermore, why are EA meanings across languages expressed as ancillary commitments? Why don’t we seem to find a language that has EAs whose meanings are expressed as at-issue meanings? 4. Proposal: Conditional Presuppositional Account (9) Jkoounni-moK = λp hs,ti λw s : 8w 0 2 Acc w,a [p(w 0 ) !fortunate w 0 (p)]. p(w) (Accw,a stands for set of worlds consistent with what the attitude holder a (typically the speaker) believes in w) • I take EA meanings to be a particular type of presuppositions, i.e., class C of projective contents, according to Tonhauser et al.’s (2013) diagnostics (10). (10) strong obligatory classes contextual felicity local effect examples A yes yes Anaphors, too (existence of alternative) B no no Expressive, appositive (Potts’s (2005) CIs) C no (see (11)) yes (see (12)) stop (prestate implication), know (factivity) D yes no Focus (salience of alternatives) (11) [Context: Two strangers are chitchatting. One of them mentions that the weather these days has been unusually cool for this time of year. The other person agrees, and continues: ] Demo but raishuu-wa next.week-top saiwai fortunately atsuku-naru hot-become rashii-node I.hear-so biichi-ni beach-to iku-tsumorina go-intend n-desu it.is yo. sfp ‘But I heard that it’s going to be hot next week, fortunately, so I’m thinking of going to the beach.’ (12) #John-wa John-top saiwai fortunately kinoo-wa yesterday-top hareta-to was.sunny-comp omotteiru-ga, think-but ame-ga rain-nom futte fall hoshikatta-to wanted-comp omotteiru. think #‘John thinks that it was fortunately sunny yesterday, but he hopes it rained.’ 5. Implications There has been an intuition that EA meanings are not part of the main assertion, but it was not clear what they really are. Analyzing EAs contributes to the understanding of “perhaps the most heterogeneous” (Ton- hauser et al. 2013) class C, which includes a wide range of phenomena from standard cases of presuppositions to more controversial kinds of implications. There is another group of adverbs (agent-oriented adverbs, e.g., stupidly ) which the proposed analysis is potentially applicable to. Finding out the distinctive property of class C adverbs will deepen our overall understanding of the nature of adverbs in general. References Bellert, I. 1977. ‘On semantic and distributional properties of sentential adverbs’. LI 8(2), 337–351. Bonami, O. & D. Godard. 2008. ‘Lexical semantics and pragmatics of evaluative adverbs’. Ernst, T. 2009. ‘Speaker-oriented adverbs’. NLLT 27, 497–544. Potts, C. 2005. The Logic of Conventional Implicature. Sawada, H. 1978. ‘Nichi-eego bunfukushi-rui no taishoo gengogaku-teki kenkyuu [A contrastive study of Japanese and English sentence adverbials: From the viewpoint of speech act theory]’. Gengo Kenkyu 74, 1–36. Schreiber, P. 1971. ‘Some constraints on the formation of English sentence adverbs’. LI 2(1), 83–101. Tonhauser, J. et. al. 2013. ‘Toward a taxonomy of projective content’. Language 89(1), 66–109.
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AConditionalPresuppositionalAccount forEvaluativeAdverbs inJapanese
Ai Kubota (Michigan State University)
Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.msu.edu/⇠matsuiai
1. Factive Predicate Approach (Schreiber 1971),(Bellert 1977)
• The factive predicate approach takes evaluative adverbs (EAs; fortunately, oddly, surprisingly, etc.) to befactive predicates: EAs take facts (true propositions) as their arguments.
(1) Surprisingly, John has arrived.a. Asserted proposition 1: John has arrived.b. Asserted proposition 2: It is surprising that John has arrived.
• According to this approach, this factivity is the reason why EAs cannot appear in questions.(2) *Has John surprisingly arrived? (Bellert 1977:(15))
• Sawada (1978) claims that Japanese EAs are also unacceptable in questions.(3) *Saiwai
Fortunatelysonothat
madaranopied
fuefuki-gapiper-nom
machijuu-nowhole.town-gen
nezumi-orat-acc
obikidashitalured.away
no-desuit.is
ka?Q
‘Did that pied piper fortunately lured rats in the town away?’ (Sawada 1978:(86))
• However, for Sawada (1978), this is not because of factivity, but multidimensionality: while the ques-tion operator takes a content (proposition) in the ‘propositional stratum’, EA meanings belong to the‘attitudinal stratum’, thus cannot be incorporated into the question sentence.
2. Conditional Approach (Bonami & Godard 2008)
• Bonami & Godard (2008) note that EAs in French can appear in questions (4) and the antecedent ofconditionals (5). (See also Mayol & Castroviejo (2013) for Catalan and Spanish.)
(4) Paul est-il, bizarrement, arrivé en retard?‘Did Paul oddly arrive late?’ (Bonami & Godard 2008:(49-b))
(5) Si Paul est malencontreusement en retard, le patron sera furieux.‘If Paul is unfortunately late, the boss will be furious.’9 Paul is late. (Bonami & Godard 2008:(15))
Cf. (5’) S’il est malheureux que Paul soit en retard, ça I’est encore plus que le patron le soit aussi.‘If it is unfortunate that Paul is late, it is even worse that the boss is late too.’! Paul is late. (Bonami & Godard 2008:(14))
• Bonami & Godard (2008) propose that EA meanings are conditional (‘p ! unfortunate(p)’; not just‘unfortunate(p)’).
(6) Marie est malheureusement venue. ‘Unfortunately, Marie came.’a. Main assertion: came(Marie)b. Ancillary commitment: came(Marie)! unfortunate(came(Marie))
• They further argue that an EA conveys an ancillary commitment of the speaker, which is independentof the assertion and the presupposition.
3. Japanese EAs
• Japanese EAs, like French EAs, are acceptable in questions (7) (contra Sawada 1978, cf. (3)) and in theantecedent of conditionals (8).
(7) A: ‘The Little Mermaid was told that she would melt into bubbles and disappear if she didn’t kill the prince.However, she couldn’t kill the person she loved.’
B: Ja,Then,
fukooni-mounfortunately
kanojo-washe-top
shindeshimaudie
n-desuit.is
ka?Q
‘Is she going to die, then?’ + ‘If she is going to die, that is unfortunate.’(8) Moshi
Ifzannennagaraunfortunately
shuuden-nilast.train-dat
maniawanakattaramake.it:neg:cond
takushii-nitaxi-dat
norinasai.ride:imp
‘If you unfortunately don’t make it for the last train, take a taxi.’9 You don’t make it for the last train.
• Japanese EAs can be better analyzed by Bonami & Godard’s (2008) conditional approach than the factivepredicate approach. However, . . .
. What is the theoretical status of ancillary commitment? Are they the same as Potts’s (2005)conventional implicatures (CIs)?
. Furthermore, why are EA meanings across languages expressed as ancillary commitments? Whydon’t we seem to find a language that has EAs whose meanings are expressed as at-issue meanings?
4. Proposal: Conditional Presuppositional Account
(9) Jkoounni-moK = �phs,ti�ws : 8w0 2 Accw,a[p(w0) !fortunatew0(p)]. p(w)(Accw,a stands for set of worlds consistent with what the attitude holder a (typically the speaker) believes in w)
• I take EA meanings to be a particular type of presuppositions, i.e., class C of projective contents,according to Tonhauser et al.’s (2013) diagnostics (10).
(10)
strong obligatory
classes contextual felicity local effect examples
A yes yes Anaphors, too (existence of alternative)B no no Expressive, appositive (Potts’s (2005) CIs)C no (see (11)) yes (see (12)) stop (prestate implication), know (factivity)D yes no Focus (salience of alternatives)
(11) [Context: Two strangers are chitchatting. One of them mentions that the weather these days has beenunusually cool for this time of year. The other person agrees, and continues: ]Demobut
raishuu-wanext.week-top
saiwaifortunately
atsuku-naruhot-become
rashii-nodeI.hear-so
biichi-nibeach-to
iku-tsumorinago-intend
n-desuit.is
yo.sfp
‘But I heard that it’s going to be hot next week, fortunately, so I’m thinking of going to the beach.’(12) #John-wa
John-top
saiwaifortunately
kinoo-wayesterday-top
hareta-towas.sunny-comp
omotteiru-ga,think-but
ame-garain-nom
futtefall
hoshikatta-towanted-comp
omotteiru.think #‘John thinks that it was fortunately sunny yesterday, but he hopes it rained.’
5. Implications
There has been an intuition that EA meanings are not part of the main assertion, but it was not clear whatthey really are. Analyzing EAs contributes to the understanding of “perhaps the most heterogeneous” (Ton-hauser et al. 2013) class C, which includes a wide range of phenomena from standard cases of presuppositionsto more controversial kinds of implications. There is another group of adverbs (agent-oriented adverbs, e.g.,stupidly) which the proposed analysis is potentially applicable to. Finding out the distinctive property ofclass C adverbs will deepen our overall understanding of the nature of adverbs in general.
References
Bellert, I. 1977. ‘On semantic and distributional properties of sentential adverbs’. LI 8(2), 337–351. Bonami, O. & D. Godard.2008. ‘Lexical semantics and pragmatics of evaluative adverbs’. Ernst, T. 2009. ‘Speaker-oriented adverbs’. NLLT 27, 497–544.Potts, C. 2005. The Logic of Conventional Implicature. Sawada, H. 1978. ‘Nichi-eego bunfukushi-rui no taishoo gengogaku-tekikenkyuu [A contrastive study of Japanese and English sentence adverbials: From the viewpoint of speech act theory]’. GengoKenkyu 74, 1–36. Schreiber, P. 1971. ‘Some constraints on the formation of English sentence adverbs’. LI 2(1), 83–101.Tonhauser, J. et. al. 2013. ‘Toward a taxonomy of projective content’. Language 89(1), 66–109.
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