Gennaro Chierchia
Biographic Data
| ID | 200217 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gennaro Chierchia |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gennaro |
| FAMILY NAME | Chierchia |
| SIGNATURE | CHIERCHIA G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0424-016X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 330 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Movement and crossover in three languages
‘People are fed up; don’t mess with them.’ Non-quantificational Arguments and Polarity Reversals
The first sentence in the title means roughly: All the people around are tired. The second means: Do not mess with any of them. Even though the second sentence looks just like a negative counterpart of the first, it doesn’t have the expected compositional meaning: it doesn’t mean “do not mess with all the people”. This phenomenon is extremely general. It takes place with Bare Plurals, as in the title. It figures prominently in the behavior of Plu…
Origins of weak crossover: When Dynamic Semantics Meets Event Semantics
Contemporary Issues in Natural Language Semantics: An interview with Gennaro Chierchia
Chierchia discusses his views on the frontiers of contemporary semantics: multidimensionality of meaning, alternative semantics, 'mid level' generalizations, the natural logicality of natural languages, the role of reference, and the place of new methodologies, i.e. lab-experiments
Clouds and blood. More on vagueness and the mass/count distinction
Scalar Implicatures and Their Interface with Grammar
Scalar implicatures (SIs) and, more generally, quantity-based implicatures (QBIs) have been intensely investigated since Grice's seminal work. Recently, SIs and QBIs have been at the center of an intense debate. Some researchers, following Grice's original insight, argue that they should be captured solely in terms of principles of rational action (the pragmatic approach). Others argue that they cannot be analyzed in purely pragmatic terms but ca…
Linguistic inability or poor performance: Dissociating scalar implicature generation and mismatch in the developing brain
Behavioral investigations of the acquisition of some have shown that children favor its logical interpretation (some and possibly all). Adults, however, use the pragmatic interpretation (some but not all) derived by a scalar implicature. Certain experimental manipulations increase children's rates of adult-like responses, indicating that children are capable of computing implicatures. A functional MRI (fMRI) study examining adults linked the left…
Logic in Grammar: Polarity, Free Choice, and Intervention
This book explores the relation between language and logic through an analysis of polarity sensitivity and free choice effects. A wide variety of items are considered, with the intent of identifying the common core of the Polarity System as well as the choices that determine the stunningly diverse array of its manifestations. Sensitivity to polarity and freedom of choice are analyzed as a form of grammaticized Scalar Implicature. This requires a …
Scalar Implicatures in Child Language: Give Children a Chance
Children's pragmatic competence in deriving conversational implicatures (and scalar implicatures in particular) offers an intriguing standpoint to explore how developmental, methodological, and purely theoretical perspectives interact and feed each other. In this paper, we focus mainly on developmental and methodological issues, showing that children from age 6 on are adult-like in deriving the scalar implicature related to the scalar quantifier …
Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation
Compositionality, Context and Semantic Values: Essays in honour of Ernie Lepore
Broaden Your Views: Implicatures of Domain Widening and the "Logicality" of Language
This article presents a unified theory of polarity-sensitive items (PSIs) based on the notion of domain widening. PSIs include negative polarity items (like Italian mai 'ever'), universal free choice items (like Italian qualunque 'any/whatever'), and existential free choice items (like Italian uno qualunque 'a whatever'). The proposal is based on a ''recursive,'' grammatically driven approach to scalar implicatures that breaks with the traditiona…
Why children and adults sometimes (but not always) compute implicatures
Noveck (2001 Noveck, I. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicatures. Cognition, 78: 168–188. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argued that children even as old as 11 do not reliably endorse a scalar interpretation of weak scalar terms (some, might, or) (cf. Braine & Rumain, 1981 Braine, M. and Roumain, B. 1981. Children's comprehension of “or”: Evidence for a sequence of competencies. Journal …
Scalar Implicatures, Polarity Phenomena, and the Syntax/Pragmatics Interface
Negative polarity phenomena, as exemplified in the behavior of English any, and scalar implicatures, as exemplified by, say, the interpretations of some (i.e., “at least one and possibly all” vs. “at least one but not all”), have often been felt to be closely related. However, the exact nature of such a relationship remains as of now not fully understood, insofar as I can tell. And in fact, some important empirical generalizations pertaining to i…
Chinese Conditionals and the Theory of Conditionals
Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”
Reference to Kinds across Language
Dynamics of Meaning: Anaphora, Presupposition, and the Theory of Grammar
Questions with quantifiers
Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics
This self-contained introduction to natural language semantics addresses the major theoretical questions in the field. The authors introduce the systematic study of linguistic meaning through a sequence of formal tools and their linguistic applications. Starting with propositional connectives and truth conditions, the book moves to quantification and binding, intensionality and tense, and so on. To set their approach in a broader perspective, the…
Anaphora and Attitudes De Se
Reference to Kinds across Language
Broaden Your Views: Implicatures of Domain Widening and the "Logicality" of Language
This article presents a unified theory of polarity-sensitive items (PSIs) based on the notion of domain widening. PSIs include negative polarity items (like Italian mai 'ever'), universal free choice items (like Italian qualunque 'any/whatever'), and existential free choice items (like Italian uno qualunque 'a whatever'). The proposal is based on a ''recursive,'' grammatically driven approach to scalar implicatures that breaks with the traditiona…
Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation
Questions with quantifiers
Origins of weak crossover: When Dynamic Semantics Meets Event Semantics
Contemporary Issues in Natural Language Semantics: An interview with Gennaro Chierchia
Chierchia discusses his views on the frontiers of contemporary semantics: multidimensionality of meaning, alternative semantics, 'mid level' generalizations, the natural logicality of natural languages, the role of reference, and the place of new methodologies, i.e. lab-experiments
Linguistic inability or poor performance: Dissociating scalar implicature generation and mismatch in the developing brain
Behavioral investigations of the acquisition of some have shown that children favor its logical interpretation (some and possibly all). Adults, however, use the pragmatic interpretation (some but not all) derived by a scalar implicature. Certain experimental manipulations increase children's rates of adult-like responses, indicating that children are capable of computing implicatures. A functional MRI (fMRI) study examining adults linked the left…
Anaphora and Attitudes De Se
Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics
This self-contained introduction to natural language semantics addresses the major theoretical questions in the field. The authors introduce the systematic study of linguistic meaning through a sequence of formal tools and their linguistic applications. Starting with propositional connectives and truth conditions, the book moves to quantification and binding, intensionality and tense, and so on. To set their approach in a broader perspective, the…
Questions with quantifiers
Dynamics of Meaning: Anaphora, Presupposition, and the Theory of Grammar
Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”
Reference to Kinds across Language
Chinese Conditionals and the Theory of Conditionals
Scalar Implicatures, Polarity Phenomena, and the Syntax/Pragmatics Interface
Negative polarity phenomena, as exemplified in the behavior of English any, and scalar implicatures, as exemplified by, say, the interpretations of some (i.e., “at least one and possibly all” vs. “at least one but not all”), have often been felt to be closely related. However, the exact nature of such a relationship remains as of now not fully understood, insofar as I can tell. And in fact, some important empirical generalizations pertaining to i…
Why children and adults sometimes (but not always) compute implicatures
Noveck (2001 Noveck, I. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicatures. Cognition, 78: 168–188. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argued that children even as old as 11 do not reliably endorse a scalar interpretation of weak scalar terms (some, might, or) (cf. Braine & Rumain, 1981 Braine, M. and Roumain, B. 1981. Children's comprehension of “or”: Evidence for a sequence of competencies. Journal …
Broaden Your Views: Implicatures of Domain Widening and the "Logicality" of Language
This article presents a unified theory of polarity-sensitive items (PSIs) based on the notion of domain widening. PSIs include negative polarity items (like Italian mai 'ever'), universal free choice items (like Italian qualunque 'any/whatever'), and existential free choice items (like Italian uno qualunque 'a whatever'). The proposal is based on a ''recursive,'' grammatically driven approach to scalar implicatures that breaks with the traditiona…
Compositionality, Context and Semantic Values: Essays in honour of Ernie Lepore
Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation
Scalar Implicatures in Child Language: Give Children a Chance
Children's pragmatic competence in deriving conversational implicatures (and scalar implicatures in particular) offers an intriguing standpoint to explore how developmental, methodological, and purely theoretical perspectives interact and feed each other. In this paper, we focus mainly on developmental and methodological issues, showing that children from age 6 on are adult-like in deriving the scalar implicature related to the scalar quantifier …
Logic in Grammar: Polarity, Free Choice, and Intervention
This book explores the relation between language and logic through an analysis of polarity sensitivity and free choice effects. A wide variety of items are considered, with the intent of identifying the common core of the Polarity System as well as the choices that determine the stunningly diverse array of its manifestations. Sensitivity to polarity and freedom of choice are analyzed as a form of grammaticized Scalar Implicature. This requires a …
Linguistic inability or poor performance: Dissociating scalar implicature generation and mismatch in the developing brain
Behavioral investigations of the acquisition of some have shown that children favor its logical interpretation (some and possibly all). Adults, however, use the pragmatic interpretation (some but not all) derived by a scalar implicature. Certain experimental manipulations increase children's rates of adult-like responses, indicating that children are capable of computing implicatures. A functional MRI (fMRI) study examining adults linked the left…
Scalar Implicatures and Their Interface with Grammar
Scalar implicatures (SIs) and, more generally, quantity-based implicatures (QBIs) have been intensely investigated since Grice's seminal work. Recently, SIs and QBIs have been at the center of an intense debate. Some researchers, following Grice's original insight, argue that they should be captured solely in terms of principles of rational action (the pragmatic approach). Others argue that they cannot be analyzed in purely pragmatic terms but ca…
Clouds and blood. More on vagueness and the mass/count distinction
Origins of weak crossover: When Dynamic Semantics Meets Event Semantics
Contemporary Issues in Natural Language Semantics: An interview with Gennaro Chierchia
Chierchia discusses his views on the frontiers of contemporary semantics: multidimensionality of meaning, alternative semantics, 'mid level' generalizations, the natural logicality of natural languages, the role of reference, and the place of new methodologies, i.e. lab-experiments
‘People are fed up; don’t mess with them.’ Non-quantificational Arguments and Polarity Reversals
The first sentence in the title means roughly: All the people around are tired. The second means: Do not mess with any of them. Even though the second sentence looks just like a negative counterpart of the first, it doesn’t have the expected compositional meaning: it doesn’t mean “do not mess with all the people”. This phenomenon is extremely general. It takes place with Bare Plurals, as in the title. It figures prominently in the behavior of Plu…
Movement and crossover in three languages
Computer Science (17 works) · Linguistics (17 works) · Philosophy (17 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (17 works) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (11 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Grammar (6 works) · Mathematics (6 works) · Meaning (existential) (6 works)