This study examines the event- related brain potential (ERP) of 25 Mexican monolingual Spanish-speakers when reading Spanish sentences with single entity anaphora or complex anaphora. Complex anaphora is an expression that refer to propositions, states, facts or events while, a single entity anaphora is an expression that refers back to a concrete object. Here we compare the cognitive cost in processing a single entity anaphora [éstafeminine; La renuncia (resignation)] from a complex anaphora [estoneuter; (...) La renuncia fue aceptada (The resignation was accepted)].Éstaelicited a larger positive peak at 200 ms, andestoelicited a larger frontal negativity around 400 ms. The positivity resembles the P200 component, and its amplitude is thought to represent an interaction between predictive qualities in sentence processing (i.e., graphical similarity and frequency of occurrence). Unlike parietal negativities (typical N400), frontal negativities are thought to represent the ease by which pronouns are linked with its antecedent, and how easy the information is recovered from short-term memory. Thus, the complex anaphora recruited more cognitive resources than the single entity anaphora. We also included an ungrammatical control sentence [éstemasculine; La renuncia (resignation)] to better understand the unique processes behind complex anaphoric resolution, as opposed to just general difficulty in sentence processing. In this case, event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited byéstemasculineandéstafemininewere compared. Again,éstaelicited a larger P200. However, different from the experimental condition, a left anterior negativity (LAN) effect was observed foréste; the ungrammatical condition. Altogether, the present research provides electrophysiological evidence indicating that demonstrative pronouns with different morphosyntactic features (i.e., gender) and discourse parameters (i.e., single entity or complex referent) interact during the first stage of anaphoric processing of anaphora. This stage initiated as early as 200 milliseconds after the pronoun onset and probably ends around 400 ms. (shrink)

This monograph investigates the temporal interpretation of narrative discourse in two parts. The theme of the first part is narrative progression. It begins with a case study of the adverb ‘now’ and its interaction with the meaning of tense. The case study motivates an ontological distinction between events, states and times and proposes that ‘now’ seeks a prominent state that holds throughout the time described by the tense. Building on prior research, prominence is shown to be influenced by principles of (...) discourse coherence and two coherence principles, NARRATION and RESULT, are given a formally explicit characterization. The key innovation is a new method for testing the definitional adequacy of NARRATION and RESULT, namely by an abductive argument. This contribution opens a new way of thinking about how eventive and stative descriptions contribute to the perceived narrative progression in a discourse. -/- The theme of the second part of the monograph is the semantics and pragmatics of tense. A key innovation is that the present and past tenses are treated as scalar alternatives, a view that is motivated by adopting a particular hypothesis concerning stative predication. The proposed analysis accounts for tense in both matrix clauses and in complements of propositional attitudes, where the notorious double access reading arises. This reading is explored as part of a corpus study that provides a glimpse of how tense semantics interacts with Gricean principles and at-issueness. Several cross-linguistic predictions of the analysis are considered, including their consequences for the Sequence of Tense phenomenon and the Upper Limit Constraint. Finally, a hypothesis is provided about how tense meanings compose with temporal adverbs and verb phrases. Two influential analysis of viewpoint aspect are then compared in light of the hypothesis. (shrink)

It has long been recognized that temporal anaphora in French and English depends on the aspectual distinction between events and states. For example, temporal location as well as temporal update depends on the aspectual type. This paper presents a general theory of aspect-based temporal anaphora, which extends from languages with grammatical tenses (like French and English) to tenseless languages (e.g. Kalaallisut). This theory also extends to additional aspect-dependent phenomena and to non-atomic aspectual types, processes and habits, which license (...) anaphora to proper atomic parts (cf. nominal pluralities and kinds). (shrink)

Clausal complements of different kinds of attitude verbs such as believe, doubt, be surprised, wonder, say, and whisper behave differently semantically in a number of respects. For example, they differ in the inference patterns they display. This paper develops a semantic account of clausal complements using partial logic which accounts for such semantic differences on the basis of a uniform meaning of clauses. It focuses on explaining the heterogeneous inference patterns associated with different kinds of attitude verbs, but it contributes (...) also to explaining differences among clausal complements of attitude verbs regarding the possibility of de re reference, anaphora support, presupposition satisfaction, and the distribution of subjunctive in certain languages. Moreover, it gives a new account of factivity. The point of departure of this paper is the general observation that the failure of inferences from attitude reports is relative in that it depends both on the general type of attitude and on the particular instance of the attitude described. Thus, from John is surprised that P and Q one cannot infer John is surprised that P and John is surprised that Q, though this is possible with believe. Conversely, one can infer from John believes that P and John believes that Q, to John believes that P and Q, but only as long as the same belief state of John is involved. In order to capture this dependency of inferences from attitude reports on a particular mental state or act, I propose an account on which clausal complements of attitude verbs (as well as independent sentences) characterize the intentional state or act described by the attitude verb in question, rather than referring to independent propositions. The semantic account of attitude reports of this paper can hence be called an 'event-based account' of clauses. Formally, the denotation of any sentence, both independent and embedded, is construed as a function mapping an intentional state or act to a function from situations (which form the content of the state or act) to truth values.. (shrink)

So far, we have focused on discourse reference to atomic individuals and specific times, events, and states. The basic point of the argument was that all types of discourse reference involve attention-guided anaphora (in the sense of Bittner 2012: Ch. 2). We now turn to discourses involving anaphora to and by quantificational expressions. Today, we focus on quantification over individuals but the analysis we develop will directly generalize to other semantic types. The basic idea is that quantification is (...) one more species of top-level anaphora--to wit, anaphora to top-ranked sets. (shrink)

Approaches to anaphora generally seek to explain the potential for a DP to covary with a pronoun in terms of a combination of factors, such as the inherent semantics of the antecedent DP, its scope properties, and its structural position. A case in point is Reinhart’s classic condition on bound anaphora, paraphrasable as A DP can antecede a pronoun pro only if the DP c-commands pro at S-structure, supplemented with some extra machinery to allow indefinites to covary with (...) pronouns beyond their c-command domains. In the present paper, I explore a different take. I propose that anaphora is governed not by DPs and their properties; it is governed by predicates and their properties. To use a metaphor from dynamic semantics: discourse referents can only be ‘activated’ by predicates, never by DPs. This conceptually simple assumption is shown to have far-reaching consequences. For one, it yields a new take on weak crossover, arguably worthy of consideration. Moreover, it leads to a further general “restatement of the anaphora question”, in Reinhart’s words. (shrink)

Sentences that ascribe action are logically related, but it is not always obvious why. According to event semantics, implications and non-implications result from referential relations between unpronounced constituents. Taking as starting point examples including free relative clauses, this paper advances the alternative view that examples as such present logical relations as forms of predicative dependence indicated with pronounced constituents. To this end, I argue that Verbal Phrases and verbal traces follow the pattern of Verbal Phrase Anaphora and, more (...) controversially, that they can be semantically interpreted in terms of higher-order quantification that represent actions as properties, but neither as events nor event-kinds. (shrink)

In traditional formal semantics the notions of reference, truth and satisfaction are basic and that of representation is derivative and dispensable. If a level of representation is included in the formal presentation of the theory, it is included as a heuristic. Semantics in the traditional sense has no bearing on any form of mental processing. When reference is understood within this framework, cognitive neuroscience cannot possibly provide any insights into the nature of reference. Traditional semantics, however, has numerous shortcomings that (...) render it inadequate as an account of natural language. Dynamic semantic theories, such as discourse representation theory (DRT), treat ever­growing, revisable mental representations as the basic semantic entities. Within this framework, there are two central notions of reference. New information may refer back to previously introduced discourse referents and discourse referents may refer to worldly entities. Because DRT treats mental representations as indispensable elements of the theory, evidence from neuroscience, particularly the recording of electroencephalograms (EEG) and its derivative event-­related potentials (ERPs), can reasonably be thought to shed light on meaning and reference within this framework. In this chapter I first review the advantages of DRT in accommodating linguistic data and then review data from neuroscience that seem to support it. Finally, I consider some methodological concerns that have been raised about the neuroscientific approach to semantics. (shrink)

Sentences that ascribe action are logically related, but it is not always obvious why. According to event semantics, implications and non-implications result from referential relations between unpronounced constituents. Taking as starting point examples including free relative clauses, this paper advances the alternative view that examples as such present logical relations as forms of predicative dependence indicated with pronounced constituents. To this end, I argue that Verbal Phrases and verbal traces follow the pattern of Verbal Phrase Anaphora and, more (...) controversially, that they can be semantically interpreted in terms of higher-order quantification that represent actions as properties, but neither as events nor event-kinds. (shrink)

We investigate a novel use of the English temporal modifier ‘now’, in which it combines with a subordinate clause. We argue for a univocal treatment of the expression, on which the subordinating use is taken as basic and the non-subordinating uses are derived. We start by surveying central features of the latter uses which have been discussed in previous work, before introducing key observations regarding the subordinating use of ‘now’ and its relation to deictic and anaphoric uses. All of these (...) data, it is argued, can be accounted for on our proposed analysis. We conclude by comparing ‘now’ to a range of other expressions which exhibit similar behavior. (shrink)

This article presents an account of temporal understanding in Mandarin Chinese. Aspectual, lexical, and adverbial information, and pragmatic principles all contribute to the interpretation of temporal location. Aspectual viewpoint and situation type give information in the absence of explicit temporal forms. The main, default pattern of interpretation is deictic. The pragmatic principles are the Bounded Event Constraint, the Simplicity Principle of Interpretation, and the Temporal Schema Principle. Lexical and adverbial information can lead to non-default interpretations. Two other temporal patterns, (...) narrative dynamism and anaphora, appear in text passages that realize the 'discourse modes' of narrative and description. (shrink)

Syntactic and semantic theories of quantificational phenomena traditionally treat all noun phrases alike, thus predicting that noun phrases exhibit a uniform behavior. It is well-known that this is an idealization: in any given case, some noun phrases will support a desired reading more readily than others. Anyone who has lectured on quantifier scope ambiguities to a class of unbrainwashed undergraduates will recall the amount of preparation time that goes into coming up with two or three examples that the class will (...) judge to be ambiguous in exactly the ways the theory under discussion predicts. The same experience with ``good citizens'' and ``bad citizens'' repeats itself in connection with branching, anaphora, distributive versus collective readings, extraction, event quantification, pair-list questions, and so on. (shrink)

The main aim of the present paper is to show that the recently developed dialogical approach to Martin-Löf’s Constructive Type Theory, called Immanent Reasoning, provides the means for distinguishing François Recanati’s process of free enrichment and saturation, meets his own objections against perspectives based on unarticulated constituents and opens a new venue to pragmatic modulation, where the speaker-receiver interaction is integrated into the notion of enrichment. In such a setting enrichment operates on proof-objects that make fully articulated event-propositions true. (...) The point is that distinguishing what makes a proposition true from the proposition made true offers a simple and clean way to avoid conflating the contextual elements that enrich a proposition with the proposition itself. Such a framework abounds in means for expressing reference structures such as anaphora, including time and/or location reference. Furthermore, the notion of dependent types of CTT and the associated formation rules allow for a straightforward analysis of composition of meaning at work in Recanati’s cases concerning occasion meaning as determined by context. The brand of dialogical contextualism, grounded on the play-level, advocated herewith is not a form of propositional syncretism. The framework offers a straightforward response to the failure of third excluded in some instances of faultless disagreement without giving up the notion of propositional content. More generally, this suggests an alternative way to tackle the interface pragmatics semantics underlying the notion of pragmatic modulation by integrating into the interface the dialogical game of asking and giving reasons. (shrink)

The traditional view is that 'now’ is a pure indexical, denoting the utterance time. Yet, despite its initial appeal, the view has faced criticism. A range of data reveal 'now’ allows for discourse-bound (i.e., anaphoric) uses, and can occur felicitously with the past tense. The reaction to this has typically been to treat ‘now’ as akin to a true demonstrative, selecting the prominent time supplied by the non-linguistic context or prior discourse. We argue this is doubly mistaken. The first mistake (...) concerns the semantic value of ‘now’, which is not a time, but a state — the consequent state of a prominent event. The second is that ‘now’ is a pure indexical after all, insofar as its interpretation is determined without recourse to extra-linguistic supplementation. Specifically, we argue that any occurrence of 'now’ selects the consequent state of the most prominent event, where event-prominence is linguistically maintained through prominence-affecting updates contributed by coherence relations. Our analysis accounts straightforwardly for a wide range of discourse initial and discourse bound uses of ‘now’, while giving it a simple indexical meaning. (shrink)

Pictorial free perception reports are sequences in comics or film of one unit that depicts an agent who is looking, and a following unit that depicts what they see. This paper proposes an analysis in possible worlds semantics and event semantics of such sequences. Free perception sequences are implicitly anaphoric, since the interpretation of the second unit refers to the agent depicted in the first. They are argued to be possibly non-extensional, because they can depict hallucination or mis-perception. The (...) semantics proposed here employs an account of anaphora using discourse referents, a formalized possible worlds semantics for pictorial narratives, and, to model the epistemic consequences of perceptual events, the event alternative construction from dynamic epistemic logic. In intensional examples, the second unit depicting what is seen is analyzed as embedded. It is argued that a semantics for embedding where the attitudinal state of the depicted agent is required to entail the semantic content of the picture attributes too much information to the agent. This is addressed with a model of normal looking, and a semantics for the embedding construction that uses existential quantification over alternatives, rather than universal quantification. (shrink)

This article looks at the way people determine the antecedent of a pronoun in sentence pairs, such as: Albert invited Ron to dinner. He spent hours cleaning the house. The experiment reported here is motivated by the idea that such judgments depend on reasoning about identity . Because the identity of an individual over time depends on the causal-historical path connecting the stages of the individual, the correct antecedent will also depend on causal connections. The experiment varied how likely it (...) is that the event of the first sentence would cause the event of the second for each of the two individuals . Decisions about the antecedent followed causal likelihood. A mathematical model of causal identity accounted for most of the key aspects of the data from the individual sentence pairs. (shrink)

Despite the attention that various forms of ellipsis have received inthe literature, the conditions under which a representation of anutterance may serve as a suitable referent for interpreting subsequentelliptical forms remain poorly understood. This fundamental questionremains as a point of contention, particularly because there are datato support various conflicting approaches that attempt to characterizethese conditions within a single module of language processing. Weshow a previously unnoticed pattern in VP-ellipsis data with respectto the type of coherence relation extant between the antecedentand (...) elided clauses. This pattern is explained by an account of howellipsis resolution processes interact with the inference processesunderlying the establishment of these relations. The analysis alsoexplains a similar yet distinct pattern in gapping constructions whichare not accounted for by purely syntactic approaches. Finally, wediscuss event reference and compare the resulting account to thedichotomy of types of anaphora posited by HanSag. (shrink)

Sentences such as “The ship was sunk to collect the insurance” exhibit an unusual form of anaphora, implicit control, where neither anaphor nor antecedent is audible. The non-finite reason clause has an understood subject, PRO, that is anaphoric; here it may be understood as naming the agent of the event of the host clause. Yet since the host is a short passive, this agent is realized by no audible dependent. The putative antecedent to PRO is therefore implicit, which (...) it normally cannot be. What sorts of representations subserve the comprehension of this dependency? Here we present four self-paced reading time studies directed at this question. Previous work showed no processing cost for implicit vs. explicit control, and took this to support the view that PRO is linked syntactically to a silent argument in the passive. We challenge this conclusion by reporting that we also find no processing cost for remote implicit control, as in: “The ship was sunk. The reason was to collect the insurance.” Here the dependency crosses two independent sentences, and so cannot, we argue, be mediated by syntax. Our Experiments 1–4 examined the processing of both implicit (short passive) and explicit (active or long passive) control in both local and remote configurations. Experiments 3 and 4 added either “3 days ago” or “just in order” to the local conditions, to control for the distance between the passive and infinitival verbs, and for the predictability of the reason clause, respectively. We replicate the finding that implicit control does not impose an additional processing cost. But critically we show that remote control does not impose a processing cost either. Reading times at the reason clause were never slower when control was remote. In fact they were always faster. Thus, efficient processing of local implicit control cannot show that implicit control is mediated by syntax; nor, in turn, that there is a silent but grammatically active argument in passives. (shrink)

Last time we saw that grammatical tenses anaphorically refer to top-ranked times or time-valued functions of top-ranked events, just like grammatical person markers anaphorically refer to top-ranked individuals or invididual-valued functions of top-ranked events. Today we extend this idea to grammatical aspect. Specifically, grammatical aspect marking in English and Polish is analyzed as discourse anaphora to top-ranked eventualities (states or events).

This is not your typical book about the A-theory/B-theory controversy in metaphysics. Peter Ludlow attempts something that few philosophers have tried in the last thirty years: he actually argues from linguistic premises for metaphysical conclusions. The relevant linguistic premises have to do with the nature of language, a general theory of semantics, the proper analysis of tense, and various technical theses involving the treatment of temporal indexicals and temporal anaphora. The metaphysical conclusions that Ludlow argues for from these linguistic (...) premises are some of the main claims normally associated with the A-theory in the philosophy of time, namely, that tense is a genuine feature of the world – and that the instantiation of these properties does not somehow reduce to the instantiation of two-place, temporal relations like earlier than, simultaneous with, later than, etc.), that temporal becoming is intrinsic to all events, and that only the present is real. The overall plan of the book is as follows. First Ludlow spends four chapters defending a cluster of related claims about language and semantics in general and, in particular, the semantics for temporal indexicals and temporal anaphora. (Ludlow says that none of this material is original – he attributes most of it to Davidson, Chomsky, Evans, and Higginbotham – but it seems to me that a fair portion of what goes into this part of the book (including, especially. (shrink)

Our contributors explore a rich variety of aesthetic problems that bring about the self-reflexive re-evaluation of ideas.

EVENTAL AESTHETICS RETROSPECTIVE 1. LOOKING BACK AT 10 ISSUES OF EVENTAL AESTHETICS.

A hijacking is a violent takeover, a misappropriation of something for a purpose other than its intended one, by parties other than those for whom the thing was meant. This issue explores the aesthetic practices and consequences of unauthorized repurposing.

This issue is dedicated to thinking about art and current aesthetic perspectives through Hegelianism.

In "Aesthetic Histories" our contributors’ shared concern is the inspiring and confounding, healthy and uncomfortable and above all inevitable relationship between history and aesthetic praxis.

In this special issue on animals and aesthetics, contributors explore encounters with animals in art and thought.

In her book, Vibrant Matter, Jane Bennett thinks through what ontological, political, and ecological questions would look like if humans could admit that matter and nonhuman things are living, creative agents; the contributors to this issue of Evental Aesthetics begin to think through what aesthetic questions would look like.

In this issue, our contributors demonstrate how art in the city, art “about” the city, art compared to the city, can bring to attention the insidious forces underlying every city’s gleaming, wide-awake veneer.

Is aesthetics a product of evolution? Are human aesthetic behaviors in fact evolutionary adaptations? The creation of artistic objects and experiences is an important aesthetic behavior. But so is the perception of aesthetic phenomena qua aesthetic. The question of evolutionary aesthetics is whether humans have evolved the capacity not only to make beautiful things but also to appreciate the aesthetic qualities in things. Are our near-universal love of music and cute baby animals essential to our species’ evolutionary development, which took (...) place over thousands of years? In other words, do aesthetic practice and appreciation help people to survive or reproduce? Do aesthetic behaviors help to propel natural selection? If so, what does that tell us about ourselves as human beings? What does it tell us about art, our other aesthetic practices, and aesthetic experience? (shrink)

This issue profiles various attempts, both successful and fraught, to engage the divide between asceticism and opulence, between materialism and poverty.

Davidsonian event semantics is often taken to form an unhappy marriage with compositional semantics. For example, it has been claimed to be problematic for semantic accounts of quantification Proceedings of the 16th Amsterdam Colloquium, 2007), for classical accounts of negation Semantics and contextual expression, 1989), and for intersective accounts of verbal coordination. This paper shows that none of this is the case, once we abandon the idea that the event variable is bound at sentence level, and assume instead (...) that verbs denote existential quantifiers over events. Quantificational arguments can then be given a semantic account, negation can be treated classically, and coordination can be modeled as intersection. The framework presented here is a natural choice for researchers and fieldworkers who wish to sketch a semantic analysis of a language without being forced to make commitments about the hierarchical order of arguments, the argument-adjunct distinction, the default scope of quantifiers, or the nature of negation and coordination. (shrink)

Our daily lives unfold continuously, yet our memories are organised into distinct events, situated in a specific context of space and time, and chunked when this context changes (at event boundaries). Previous research showed that this process, termed event segmentation, enhances object-context binding but impairs temporal order memory. Physiologically, peaks in pupil dilation index event segmentation, similar to emotion-induced bursts of autonomic arousal. Emotional arousal also modulates object-context binding and temporal order memory. Yet, these two critical factors (...) have not been systematically studied together. To address this gap, we ran a behavioural experiment using a paradigm validated to study event segmentation and extended it with emotion manipulation. During encoding, we sequentially presented greyscale objects embedded in coloured frames (colour changes defining events), with a neutral or aversive sound. During retrieval, we tested participants’ memory of temporal order memory and object-colour binding. We found opposite effects of emotion and event segmentation on episodic memory. While event segmentation enhanced object-context binding, emotion impaired it. On the contrary, event segmentation impaired temporal order memory, but emotion enhanced it. These findings increase our understanding of episodic memory organisation in laboratory settings, and potentially in real life with perceptual changes and emotion fluctuations constantly interacting. (shrink)