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5 - Relative Clauses (I)

from Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2021

Alex Silk
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Summary

This chapter develops an improved assignment-variable-based compositional semantics for head-raising analyses of restrictive relative clauses, and applies the account to certain types of pronominal anaphora. The speculative choice-function based analysis of names from Chapter 4 is extended to certain indefinites, relative words, and donkey pronouns. An analysis of donkey pronouns as copies of their linguistic antecedent is supported by crosslinguistic data. Nominal quantifiers are treated as introducing quantification over assignments. The proposed semantics for quantifiers helps capture linguistic shifting data in universal, existential, and asymmetric readings of donkey sentences. Additional composition rules or principles for interpreting reconstructed phrases aren’t required (e.g., Predicate Abstraction, Predicate Modification, Trace Conversion). The semantics is fully compositional. Critical challenges are discussed.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Relative Clauses (I)
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Semantics with Assignment Variables
  • Online publication: 09 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108870078.008
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  • Relative Clauses (I)
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Semantics with Assignment Variables
  • Online publication: 09 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108870078.008
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Relative Clauses (I)
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Semantics with Assignment Variables
  • Online publication: 09 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108870078.008
Available formats
×