Pauline Jacobson

Biographic Data

ID751554
NAMEPauline Jacobson
GIVEN NAMESPauline
FAMILY NAMEJacobson
SIGNATUREJACOBSON P
AFFILIATIONSBrown University
ORCID0000-0002-2224-5012
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS14
TOTAL CITATIONS17
AUTHOR COUNT13
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1982
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX2

  • A Categorial Grammar View of Syntactic Categories: Evidence from Unexpected Coordinations

    Pauline JacobsonARTICLELinguistic Inquiry2025

    This article explores the consequences of two natural assumptions within Categorial Grammar (CG): (a) “function” categories literally correspond to functions on strings, and (b) features are encoded on the result category in a complex function category. Taken together (along with other independently motivated devices within CG), these assumptions give rise to four striking predictions. (1) Surprising sentences like Barry plays the standup bass, t…

  • From Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar to Categorial Grammar (and partway back again)

    Open AccessPauline JacobsonARTICLEJournal of Linguistics2025

    The account of extraction using only generalized context free phrase structure (put forth in a series of papers by Gazdar in the late 1970s and early 1980s and then codified in Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar) used, slash as a feature to indicate that there was something missing in wh -extraction constructions. Although this was (deliberately) reminiscent of the slash of Categorial Grammar (CG) (which encodes argument selection), they treate…

  • Neg Raising and ellipsis (and related issues) revisited

    Open AccessPauline JacobsonARTICLENatural Language Semantics2020Cited by: 2References: 16

  • Some People Think There Is Neg Raising, and Some Don't: Neg Raising Meets Ellipsis

    Pauline JacobsonARTICLELinguistic Inquiry2018Cited by: 1References: 16

    The interaction of Neg raising (NR) with VP-ellipsis (VPE) shows that if NR is a rule of grammar, then the conditions on VPE must be exact syntactic identity and must be insensitive to major semantic differences between the so-called antecedent and the meaning understood at the ellipsis site. In particular, the conditions on ellipsis must be so blind to the semantics that they allow a polarity reversal between the antecedent and the understanding…

  • The short answer: Implications for direct compositionality (and vice versa): Online Appendices

    Pauline JacobsonARTICLELanguage2016

  • The short answer: Implications for direct compositionality (and vice versa)

    Open AccessPauline JacobsonARTICLELanguage2016Cited by: 13

    This article is concerned with the analysis of ‘short’ or ‘fragment’ answers to questions, and the relationship between these and the hypothesis of DIRECT COMPOSITIONALITY (DC) (e.g. Montague 1970). DC claims that the syntax and semantics work ‘in tandem’ to prove expressions well formed, while at the same time assigning them a meaning (a model-theoretic object). DC makes it difficult to state any kind of identity condition for ‘ellipsis’ and wou…

  • A Pragmatic Account of Complexity in Definite Antecedent-Contained-Deletion Relative Clauses

    Edward Gibson, Pauline Jacobson et al.ARTICLEJournal of Semantics2015

    Hackl, Koster-Hale & Varvoutis (2012; HKV) provide data that suggest that in a null context, antecedent-contained-deletion (ACD) relative clause structures modifying a quantified object noun phrase (NP; such as every doctor ) are easier to process than those modifying a definite object NP (such as the doctor ). HKV argue that this pattern of results supports a ‘quantifier-raising’ (QR) analysis of both ACD structures and quantified NPs in object …

  • Direct Compositionality and 'Uninterpretability': The Case of (Sometimes) 'Uninterpretable' Features on Pronouns

    Pauline JacobsonARTICLEJournal of Semantics2012

    The goal of this paper is to investigate a case in which certain features have been argued to sometimes play a role in the interpretation of an expression and sometimes not—in particular, the case of gender and person features on pronouns.1 That these are in certain configurations only agreement features which have no semantic content has been explored in numerous places; for an especially detailed study, see Kratzer (1998, 2008); see also Heim (…

  • A Theoria Round Table on Philosophy Publishing

    Open AccessBengt Hansson, Hans van Ditmarsch et al.ARTICLETheoria2011

    As part of the conference commemorating Theoria's 75th anniversary, a round table discussion on philosophy publishing was held in Bergendal, Sollentuna, Sweden, on 1 October 2010. Bengt Hansson was the chair, and the other participants were eight editors‐in‐chief of philosophy journals: Hans van Ditmarsch (Journal of Philosophical Logic), Pascal Engel (Dialectica), Sven Ove Hansson (Theoria), Vincent Hendricks (Synthese), Søren Holm (Journal of M…

  • Ellen F. Prince

    Open AccessGregory Ward, Betty J Birner et al.ARTICLELanguage2011

    Ellen F. Prince Gregory Ward, Betty J. Birner, Laurence R. Horn, Barbara Abbott, Pauline Jacobson, and Jerrold M. Sadock Ellen F. Prince, president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008 and a major figure in the fields of discourse, pragmatics, and information structure, died peacefully in her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 2010, of lung cancer. She was sixty-six. At the time of her death, Ellen was Professor Emeritus (…

  • Towards a Variable-Free Semantics

    Open AccessPauline JacobsonARTICLELinguistics and Philosophy1999

  • The Nature of Syntactic Representation

    Judith Aissen, Judith L Aissen et al.ARTICLELanguage1985

  • Connectivity in phrase structure grammar

    Open AccessPauline JacobsonARTICLENatural Language and Linguistic…1984Cited by: 1References: 6

  • The Nature of Syntactic Representation

    Open AccessPauline Jacobson, Geoffrey K PullumBOOKNature of Syntactic Representation1982