October 16 th 2015, Budapest Workshop on Linguistic and Cognitive - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

October 16 th 2015, Budapest Workshop on Linguistic and Cognitive aspects of Quantification

 The semantics and the acquisition of the distributive marker po , which is notorious, (common to Slavic and has very broad distribution);  our focus – po combining with numerals in different argument positions (subject and object)

 What is the semantics of po ?  How do adults and children understand sentences with po combining with numerals ( po -numerals)?

 a universal distributive quantifier ( each )  a distributive-share marker (Choe 1987)  a distance-distributive marker (Zimmermann 2002)  a pluractional marker (Newman 1990, Lasersohn 1995) ?

 Part 1: po is not a universal quantifier  Part 2: po quantifies over events  Part 3: experiment  Part 4: discussion

Distributive Collective (i) Three kids are riding a horse.

 Most of the data come from the languages with the universal distributive quantifier (e.g. each ) (i) Three kids are riding a horse. Distributive : each of the three kids is riding a horse

PO IS NOT A UNIVERSAL QUANTIFIER

(1) Tri devojčice drže dva balona. three girls hold two balloons ‘Three girls hold two balloons.’ collective: together distributive: separately/each

(2) Tri devojčice drže po dva balona. three girls hold po two balloons ‘ Three girls hold two balloons separately/each.’ ‘ Three girls hold two balloons at separate locations/time intervals.’ # collective: together distributive: separately/each distributive: at separate locations/time intervals

participant distributive ‘Three girls hold two balloons separately/each.’ > distribution is over event participants (girls) (cf. Cable 2014)

event-distributive ‘Three girls hold two balloons at separate locations/time intervals.’ > distribution is over locations/times

(2) [ Devojčice] key drže [ po dva balona ] share girls hold po two balloon (3) [Each girl] key holds [two balloons] share -Share is what is distributed -Key is distributed over

(2) [ Devojčice] key drže [ po dva balona ] share girl hold po two balloon  po attaches to the share (what is distributed)

(3) [Each girl] key hold [two balloons] share  each (determiner-like) attaches to the key (the NP over which the distribution takes place)

 x [x is a girl] [(  y) y is ‘2 balloons’  x holds y] [Each girl] [holds two balloons]. [ Devojčice] [drže po dva balona]. girls hold po two balloons

(3) Each girl holds two balloons.  Exhaustivity (goup of girls needs to be exhausted)  Atomicity (the group of girls needs to be partitioned into atoms)

(3) Each girl holds two balloons.  Context A: Mary and Jane hold 2 balloons together and Rose holds 2 balloons ✗  Context B: Mary and Jane hold 2 balloons each while Rose is holding 2 kites ✗

(2) Devojčice drže po dva balona. girls hold po two balloon  no exhaustivity requirement (the group of girls needs not be exhausted)  no atomicity requirement (the group of girls needs not be partitioned in atoms)

(2) Devojčice drže po dva balona girls hold po two balloon  Context A: Mary and Jane hold 2 balloons together and Rose holds 2 balloons ✓  Context B: Mary and Jane hold 2 balloons each while Rose is holding 2 kites ✓

Differences  Spatial/temporal distribution  ‘Non - exhaustive’ context  ‘Non - atomic’ context  po ≠ each , UQ or DD (floated)

 one way of salvaging the key-share view: exhaustivity requirement is over events (the key is always an event - spatiotemporal argument)  hard to disprove or test

G1: No atomic partitioning requirement  Participants in the described events do not have to be atomically partitioned (they can also be partitioned into groups or not partitioned at all). G2: No exhaustivity requirement  The group of participants in the event needs not be exhausted (‘exhaustively distributed over’). This holds even in the case where the distribution is over atomic participants.

 po is not a universal distributive quantifier  po attaches to what is distributed (distshare)

PO QUANTIFIES OVER EVENTS

Claim  po systematically involves distribution over spaces/times  participant-distribution follows from event-distribution

(1) Tri devojčice drže po dva balona (2) Three girls each hold two balloons. ‘Each of the three girls holds two balloons.’  participant-distributive (exhaustive and atomic)

(1) Tri devojčice drže po dva balona (2) Three girls each hold two balloons. ‘Some (but not necessary all) girls holds two balloons in groups or individually.’  participant-distributive (not exhaustive and not atomic)

(1) Tri devojčice drže po dva balona. (2) Three girls each hold two balloons. ‘Three girls hold two balloons at separate locations or/and time intervals.’  event-distributive

 po semantically combines first with a numeral ( n ) and then with an NP and  there must be at least two events that involve an NP of the cardinality n (cumulation of events involving n NP, ex. po 2 balloons)

[[po]] =  n.  Q <e,t> .  P <e,  t> .  e. e  *  n Q & e   n Q &  x. Q(x) = 1 & P(x)(e) = 1

Tri devojčice drže po dva balona three girls hold po two balloons - A plurality of events – constructed out of single events involving 2 balloons

hold-event agent theme e 1 Mary b 1 +b 2 e 2 Jane b 3 +b 4 e 3 Rose b 5 +b 6 *hold-event_ agent-sum theme-sum e 1 +e 2 Mary+Jane b 1 +b 2 +b 3 +b 4 e 1 +e 2 +e 3 Mary+Jane+Rose b 1 +b 2 + b 3 +b 4 +b 5 +b 6 … - at least two events involving 2 balloons

hold-event agent theme e 1 Mary+Jane+Rose b 1 +b 2 e 2 Mary+Jane+Rose b 3 +b 4 e 3 Mary+Jane+Rose b 5 +b 6 *hold-event_ agent-sum theme-sum e 1 +e 2 +e 3 Mary+Jane+Rose b 1 +b 2 + b 3 +b 4 +b 5 +b 6 … - at least two events involving 2 balloons

 po is not a universal distributive quantifier like each , since it does not require atomic partitioning of the group of participants or exhaustive distribution over participants  po quantifies over spatiotemporal units (events)  quantification over events derives so-called quantification over participants  the participants can but need not be ‘atomic’ or ‘exhausted’

ACQUISITION

Do children know that po yields:  event-distributive readings (distribution over space/time)  participant-distributive readings (events involving atomic participants) and  syntactically attaches to what is distributed (distributive share, cf. Choe 1987)?

(1) po -object sentences Tri devojčice drže po dva balona. three girls hold po two balloon ‘Three girls are (each) / separately holding two balloons.’ (2) po -subject sentences Po tri devojčice drže dva balona. po three girls hold two balloon ‘Three girls are holding each of two balloons.’ (3) double- po sentences Po tri devojčice drže po dva balona. po three girls hold po two balloon ‘Three girls are holding two balloons at separate locations.’

Subject-distributive (SD) (1) Tri devojčice drže po dva balona. three girls hold po two balloons ‘Three girls are (each) / separately holding two balloons.’

Object-distributive (OD) Po tri devojčice drže dva balona. po three girls hold two balloons ‘Three girls are holding each of two balloons.’

Event-distributive (ED) (3) Po tri devojčice drže po dva balona. po three girls hold po two balloons ‘Three girls are holding two balloons at separate locations.’

SD OD ED po -object YES NO YES po -subject NO YES YES double- po NO NO YES

 Children: N=19, between ages 6;8 and 7;6 (MA= 6.5, SD = 0.5,10 girls)  Adults: N=17, f=12, MA= 35.5, sd=8.8

 54 test items  18 distracters  block design (24 items) balanced across subjects  TVJT

 H1: All po -sentences allow event- distributive readings.  H2: The position of po determines the type of a participant-distributive reading of the sentence (subject-distributive or object-distributive).

100 90 80 70 60 SD 50 OD 40 ED 30 20 10 0 po-object po-subject double-po

 The syntactic position of po determines the participant-distributive reading of its sentence (supporting H2)

 Object-distributive readings (OD) were accepted significantly less than all other readings (unpredicted)

the information structure hypothesis:  Left-most peripheral positions are suitable topics (Godjevac 2003)  Nonspecific NPs are not suitable candidates for topics  po -phrases are nonspecific (Choe 1987)