Floris Roelofsen
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 826633 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Floris Roelofsen |
| NOMBRES | Floris |
| APELLIDO | Roelofsen |
| FIRMA | ROELOFSEN F |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3224-5251 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 31 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 109 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 30 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2010 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Operationalizing focus-sensitivity in a cross-linguistic context
This paper evaluates empirical methods for detecting the focus-sensitivity of clause-embedding predicates, with the objective of making them applicable to predicates within and across languages. Our positive proposal is a test based on a combination of inferential judgments and truth-value judgments. We compare this method with three alternatives: one based on truth-value judgments alone; another based on judgments of coherence or contradiction; …
Hearing parents learning sign language
Around 90–95% of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are born to hearing parents, most of whom have no prior knowledge of a sign language. This creates a risk of language deprivation, with long-term effects on language, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Research shows that sign language input supports children's development without hindering spoken language acquisition. Yet many hearing parents of DHH children are discouraged from …
Navigating sign language learning
The importance of hearing parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children learning sign language is well documented. However, parents face many challenges in this learning process. This study investigates the experiences of Dutch hearing parents learning Dutch Sign Language (NGT) or Sign-supported Dutch through semi-structured interviews with 21 parents and 6 NGT teachers. The interviews explored parents’ and teachers’ perspectives on parental…
The indefinite-interrogative affinity in Catalan Sign Language (LSC)
This paper explores the morphology and the licensing conditions of a particular type of indefinite pronouns, referred to as quex-indefinites, which are morphologically identical or closely related to question words. We present findings from two studies investigating these forms in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). The first study is based on elicitation with three LSC consultants, while the second is an online experiment which collected judgments from…
Focused NPIs in Statements and Questions
Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) with emphatic prosody such as ANY or EVER, and minimizers such as lift a finger or sleep a wink are known to generate particular contextual inferences that are absent in the case of non-emphatic NPIs such as unstressed any or ever. It remains an open question, however, what the exact status of these inferences is and how they come about. In this paper, we analyze these cases as NPIs bearing focus, and examine the in…
Wh-questions in dynamic inquisitive semantics
This target article presents a type-theoretic dynamic inquisitive semantics framework, extending the first-order system presented in (Dotlačil, Jakub & Floris Roelofsen. 2019. Dynamic inquisitive semantics: Anaphora and questions. Sinn und Bedeutung 23. 365–382). Within this framework, we develop a compositional treatment of wh-questions whose basic premise is that a wh-phrase introduces a discourse referent u , just like non-interrogative indefi…
Dynamic inquisitive semantics—looking ahead and looking back
We thank all commentators for their thoughtful contributions.Our response is divided into two sections.Section 1 looks ahead, discussing some of the open issues identified by the commentators for dynamic inquisitive semantics and tentatively suggesting how these issues may be addressed in future extensions and refinements of the framework.Section 2 looks back, clarifying how dynamic inquisitive semantics builds on previous frameworks for question…
Minds
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Quexistentials and Focus
Many languages have words that can be interpreted either as question words or as existentials. We call such words quexistentials. It has been claimed in the literature (e.g., Haida 2007) that, across languages, quexistentials are (a) always focused on their interrogative interpretation and (b) never focused on their existential interpretation. We refer to this as the quexistential-focus biconditional. The article makes two contributions. The firs…
Ignorance implicatures of modified numerals
Modified numerals, such as at least three and more than five , are known to sometimes give rise to ignorance inferences. However, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the nature of these inferences, their context dependence, and differences between at least and more than . We present a series of experiments which sheds new light on these issues. Our results show that (a) the ignorance inferences of at least are more robust than those…
Polarity particles revisited
Claus et al. (2017) present novel experimental evidence concerning polarity particle responses in German, and discuss the challenges these findings raise for three approaches to such responses, namely the saliency approach of Krifka (20130, the feature model of Roelofsen and Farkas (2015), and the ellipsis approaches of Kramer and Rawlins (2012), and Holmberg (2016). The authors then sketch a way to account for the data within the feature model, …
Distributive ignorance inferences with wonder and believe
A sentence like Mary wonders whether Ann, Bill or Carol broke the vase implies that Mary still consider all disjuncts possible. This inference has been referred to as a distributive ignorance inference (Roelofsen & Uegaki 2016). We present two experiments examining the distributive ignorance inferences triggered by two verbs, wonder and believe, with different types of complements and different types of quantificational subjects. The results of t…
Picky predicates
It is a long-standing puzzle why predicates like believe embed declarative but not interrogative complements (e.g., Bill believes that/*whether Mary left) and why predicates like wonder embed interrogative but not declarative complements (e.g., Bill wonders whether/*that Mary left). This paper shows how the selectional restrictions of a range of predicates (neg-raising predicates like believe, truth-evaluating predicates like be true, inquisitive…
Inquisitive Semantics
There is an age-old tradition in linguistics and philosophy to identify the meaning of a entence with its truth-conditions. This can be explained by the fact that linguistic and philosophical investigations are usually carried out in a logical framework that was originally designed to characterize valid reasoning. Indeed, in order to determine whether an argument is valid, it suffices to know the truth-conditions of the premises and conclusion. H…
A Uniform Semantics for Declarative and Interrogative Complements
This paper proposes a semantics for declarative and interrogative complements and for so-called responsive verbs, like know and forget, which embed both kinds of complements. Following Groenendijk & Stokhof (1984), we pursue a uniform account in the sense that we take both kinds of complements to be of the same semantic type and we assume a single lexical entry for each responsive verb. This approach avoids a number of problems for non-uniform th…
An Inquisitive Perspective on Modals and Quantifiers
Inquisitive semantics enriches the standard truth-conditional notion of meaning, in order to facilitate an integrated semantic analysis of statements and questions. Taking this richer view on meaning as a starting point, this review presents a new perspective on modal operators and quantifiers, one that has the potential to address a number of challenges for standard semantic analyses of such operators. To illustrate the new perspective, we prese…
Division of Labor in the Interpretation of Declaratives and Interrogatives
This article presents an account of the semantic content and conventional discourse effects of a range of sentence types in English, namely falling declaratives, polar interrogatives and certain kinds of rising declaratives and tag interrogatives. The account aims to divide the labor between compositional semantics and conventions of use in a principled way. We argue that falling declaratives and polar interrogatives are unmarked sentence types. …
Hurford's constraint, the semantics of disjunction, and the nature of alternatives
This paper contributes to two recent lines of work on disjunction: on the one hand, work on so-called Hurford disjunctions, i.e., disjunctions where one disjunct entails another, and on the other hand, work in alternative and inquisitive semantics where disjunction has been argued to generate multiple propositional alternatives. We point out that Hurford effects are found not only in disjunctive statements, but also in disjunctive questions. Thes…
Inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic
On the semantics and logic of declaratives and interrogatives
Logics of questions
Polarity particle responses as a window onto the interpretation of questions and assertions
This article provides an account of the distribution and interpretation of polarity particles in responses, starting with yes and no in English, and then extending the coverage to their crosslinguistic kin. Polarity particles are used in responses to both declarative and interrogative sentences, and thus provide a window onto the semantics and discourse effects of such sentences. We argue that understanding the distribution and interpretation of …
Indefinites in comparatives
Question tags and sentential negativity
N-words and sentential negation
A prominent treatment of n -words such as nobody and never is as indefinite expressions occurring in the scope of a covert sentential negation operator. This paper presents three experiments using two novel strategies based on polarity particles and VP ellipsis to test the predictions of this treatment of n -words. The first experiment tests a particular prediction of recent accounts of polarity particles with respect to agreeing responses to neg…
Polarity particle responses as a window onto the interpretation of questions and assertions
This article provides an account of the distribution and interpretation of polarity particles in responses, starting with yes and no in English, and then extending the coverage to their crosslinguistic kin. Polarity particles are used in responses to both declarative and interrogative sentences, and thus provide a window onto the semantics and discourse effects of such sentences. We argue that understanding the distribution and interpretation of …
Inquisitive Semantics
This paper presents a notion of meaning that captures both informative and inquisitive content, which forms the cornerstone of inquisitive semantics. The new notion of meaning is explained and motivated in detail, and compared to previous inquisitive notions of meaning
Inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic
Algebraic foundations for the semantic treatment of inquisitive content
In classical logic, the proposition expressed by a sentence is construed as a set of possible worlds, capturing the informative content of the sentence. However, sentences in natural language are not only used to provide information, but also to request information. Thus, natural language semantics requires a logical framework whose notion of meaning does not only embody informative content, but also inquisitive content. This paper develops the a…
The Interpretation of Prosody in Disjunctive Questions
Alternative questions differ prosodically from identically worded disjunctive yes/no questions in their accentual characteristics and their final pitch contour. Alternative questions are canonically pronounced with a final fall and with pitch accents on all disjuncts, while disjunctive yes/no questions are canonically pronounced with a final rise and generally without pitch accents on every disjunct. This article presents an experiment investigat…
On the semantics and logic of declaratives and interrogatives
Indefinites in comparatives
Condition B effects in two simple steps
This paper is concerned with constraints on the interpretation of pronominal anaphora, in particular Condition B effects. It aims to contribute to a particular approach, initiated by Reinhart (Anaphora and semantic interpretation, 1983) and further developed elsewhere. It proposes a modification of Reinhart’s Interface Rule, and argues that the resulting theory compares favorably with others, while being compatible with independently motivated ge…
Question tags and sentential negativity
Quexistentials and Focus
Many languages have words that can be interpreted either as question words or as existentials. We call such words quexistentials. It has been claimed in the literature (e.g., Haida 2007) that, across languages, quexistentials are (a) always focused on their interrogative interpretation and (b) never focused on their existential interpretation. We refer to this as the quexistential-focus biconditional. The article makes two contributions. The firs…
Picky predicates
It is a long-standing puzzle why predicates like believe embed declarative but not interrogative complements (e.g., Bill believes that/*whether Mary left) and why predicates like wonder embed interrogative but not declarative complements (e.g., Bill wonders whether/*that Mary left). This paper shows how the selectional restrictions of a range of predicates (neg-raising predicates like believe, truth-evaluating predicates like be true, inquisitive…
Hurford's constraint, the semantics of disjunction, and the nature of alternatives
This paper contributes to two recent lines of work on disjunction: on the one hand, work on so-called Hurford disjunctions, i.e., disjunctions where one disjunct entails another, and on the other hand, work in alternative and inquisitive semantics where disjunction has been argued to generate multiple propositional alternatives. We point out that Hurford effects are found not only in disjunctive statements, but also in disjunctive questions. Thes…
Logics of questions
Free Variable Economy
Several authors have recently argued that semantic interpretation is subject to economy constraints. In particular, Fox (1999) argued that the interpretation of pronouns is subject to binding economy, which favors local binding over non-local binding. The present paper points out a problem for binding economy. The aim, then, is to see if this problem can be resolved in a conservative way, that is, preserving the general idea that interpretation i…
Condition B effects in two simple steps
This paper is concerned with constraints on the interpretation of pronominal anaphora, in particular Condition B effects. It aims to contribute to a particular approach, initiated by Reinhart (Anaphora and semantic interpretation, 1983) and further developed elsewhere. It proposes a modification of Reinhart’s Interface Rule, and argues that the resulting theory compares favorably with others, while being compatible with independently motivated ge…
Free Variable Economy
Several authors have recently argued that semantic interpretation is subject to economy constraints. In particular, Fox (1999) argued that the interpretation of pronouns is subject to binding economy, which favors local binding over non-local binding. The present paper points out a problem for binding economy. The aim, then, is to see if this problem can be resolved in a conservative way, that is, preserving the general idea that interpretation i…
Logic, Language and Meaning
N-words and sentential negation
A prominent treatment of n -words such as nobody and never is as indefinite expressions occurring in the scope of a covert sentential negation operator. This paper presents three experiments using two novel strategies based on polarity particles and VP ellipsis to test the predictions of this treatment of n -words. The first experiment tests a particular prediction of recent accounts of polarity particles with respect to agreeing responses to neg…
Algebraic foundations for the semantic treatment of inquisitive content
In classical logic, the proposition expressed by a sentence is construed as a set of possible worlds, capturing the informative content of the sentence. However, sentences in natural language are not only used to provide information, but also to request information. Thus, natural language semantics requires a logical framework whose notion of meaning does not only embody informative content, but also inquisitive content. This paper develops the a…
Inquisitive Semantics
This paper presents a notion of meaning that captures both informative and inquisitive content, which forms the cornerstone of inquisitive semantics. The new notion of meaning is explained and motivated in detail, and compared to previous inquisitive notions of meaning
The Interpretation of Prosody in Disjunctive Questions
Alternative questions differ prosodically from identically worded disjunctive yes/no questions in their accentual characteristics and their final pitch contour. Alternative questions are canonically pronounced with a final fall and with pitch accents on all disjuncts, while disjunctive yes/no questions are canonically pronounced with a final rise and generally without pitch accents on every disjunct. This article presents an experiment investigat…
Indefinites in comparatives
Question tags and sentential negativity
Inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic
On the semantics and logic of declaratives and interrogatives
Logics of questions
Polarity particle responses as a window onto the interpretation of questions and assertions
This article provides an account of the distribution and interpretation of polarity particles in responses, starting with yes and no in English, and then extending the coverage to their crosslinguistic kin. Polarity particles are used in responses to both declarative and interrogative sentences, and thus provide a window onto the semantics and discourse effects of such sentences. We argue that understanding the distribution and interpretation of …
Division of Labor in the Interpretation of Declaratives and Interrogatives
This article presents an account of the semantic content and conventional discourse effects of a range of sentence types in English, namely falling declaratives, polar interrogatives and certain kinds of rising declaratives and tag interrogatives. The account aims to divide the labor between compositional semantics and conventions of use in a principled way. We argue that falling declaratives and polar interrogatives are unmarked sentence types. …
Hurford's constraint, the semantics of disjunction, and the nature of alternatives
This paper contributes to two recent lines of work on disjunction: on the one hand, work on so-called Hurford disjunctions, i.e., disjunctions where one disjunct entails another, and on the other hand, work in alternative and inquisitive semantics where disjunction has been argued to generate multiple propositional alternatives. We point out that Hurford effects are found not only in disjunctive statements, but also in disjunctive questions. Thes…
Inquisitive Semantics
There is an age-old tradition in linguistics and philosophy to identify the meaning of a entence with its truth-conditions. This can be explained by the fact that linguistic and philosophical investigations are usually carried out in a logical framework that was originally designed to characterize valid reasoning. Indeed, in order to determine whether an argument is valid, it suffices to know the truth-conditions of the premises and conclusion. H…
A Uniform Semantics for Declarative and Interrogative Complements
This paper proposes a semantics for declarative and interrogative complements and for so-called responsive verbs, like know and forget, which embed both kinds of complements. Following Groenendijk & Stokhof (1984), we pursue a uniform account in the sense that we take both kinds of complements to be of the same semantic type and we assume a single lexical entry for each responsive verb. This approach avoids a number of problems for non-uniform th…
An Inquisitive Perspective on Modals and Quantifiers
Inquisitive semantics enriches the standard truth-conditional notion of meaning, in order to facilitate an integrated semantic analysis of statements and questions. Taking this richer view on meaning as a starting point, this review presents a new perspective on modal operators and quantifiers, one that has the potential to address a number of challenges for standard semantic analyses of such operators. To illustrate the new perspective, we prese…
Polarity particles revisited
Claus et al. (2017) present novel experimental evidence concerning polarity particle responses in German, and discuss the challenges these findings raise for three approaches to such responses, namely the saliency approach of Krifka (20130, the feature model of Roelofsen and Farkas (2015), and the ellipsis approaches of Kramer and Rawlins (2012), and Holmberg (2016). The authors then sketch a way to account for the data within the feature model, …
Distributive ignorance inferences with wonder and believe
A sentence like Mary wonders whether Ann, Bill or Carol broke the vase implies that Mary still consider all disjuncts possible. This inference has been referred to as a distributive ignorance inference (Roelofsen & Uegaki 2016). We present two experiments examining the distributive ignorance inferences triggered by two verbs, wonder and believe, with different types of complements and different types of quantificational subjects. The results of t…
Picky predicates
It is a long-standing puzzle why predicates like believe embed declarative but not interrogative complements (e.g., Bill believes that/*whether Mary left) and why predicates like wonder embed interrogative but not declarative complements (e.g., Bill wonders whether/*that Mary left). This paper shows how the selectional restrictions of a range of predicates (neg-raising predicates like believe, truth-evaluating predicates like be true, inquisitive…
Ignorance implicatures of modified numerals
Modified numerals, such as at least three and more than five , are known to sometimes give rise to ignorance inferences. However, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the nature of these inferences, their context dependence, and differences between at least and more than . We present a series of experiments which sheds new light on these issues. Our results show that (a) the ignorance inferences of at least are more robust than those…
Focused NPIs in Statements and Questions
Negative Polarity Items (NPIs) with emphatic prosody such as ANY or EVER, and minimizers such as lift a finger or sleep a wink are known to generate particular contextual inferences that are absent in the case of non-emphatic NPIs such as unstressed any or ever. It remains an open question, however, what the exact status of these inferences is and how they come about. In this paper, we analyze these cases as NPIs bearing focus, and examine the in…
Wh-questions in dynamic inquisitive semantics
This target article presents a type-theoretic dynamic inquisitive semantics framework, extending the first-order system presented in (Dotlačil, Jakub & Floris Roelofsen. 2019. Dynamic inquisitive semantics: Anaphora and questions. Sinn und Bedeutung 23. 365–382). Within this framework, we develop a compositional treatment of wh-questions whose basic premise is that a wh-phrase introduces a discourse referent u , just like non-interrogative indefi…
Dynamic inquisitive semantics—looking ahead and looking back
We thank all commentators for their thoughtful contributions.Our response is divided into two sections.Section 1 looks ahead, discussing some of the open issues identified by the commentators for dynamic inquisitive semantics and tentatively suggesting how these issues may be addressed in future extensions and refinements of the framework.Section 2 looks back, clarifying how dynamic inquisitive semantics builds on previous frameworks for question…
Computer Science (26 obras) · Philosophy (25 obras) · Linguistics (23 obras) · Epistemology (15 obras) · Natural language processing (14 obras) · Programming language (14 obras) · Artificial Intelligence (13 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (13 obras) · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge (11 obras) · Mathematics (11 obras)