Beck
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 4712 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Beck |
| SOBRENOME | Beck |
| ASSINATURA | BECK |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Tübingen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1077-4048 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 30 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 177 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 30 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1937 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Evidence for a generalized quantifier semantics in the interpretation of German weak personal pronouns—a response to Elbourne (2021)
This paper is a response to Elbourne’s (Natural Language Semantics 29:579–600, 2021) observation that pronouns can take on the semantics of a quantifier in English. I refer to the pronouns discovered by Elbourne as Q-type pronouns. I provide comparable data from German and extract constraints on when the phenomenon can occur by way of crosslinguistic comparison. A further development of Elbourne’s analysis of Q-type pronouns is proposed by formal…
Turkish correlatives in monolingual Turkish and bilingual Turkish-German grammar
Our paper presents an experimental study on multiple correlatives in Turkish. The research questions that guided our study are twofold: (a) What are the presuppositions of multiple correlatives in Turkish? (b) Is there a difference between monolingual Turkish speakers and bilingual Turkish-German speakers with respect to multiple correlatives? Question (a) targets the presuppositions of interrogative-based correlatives. Since the presuppositions …
On Old English swa 'so'
This paper investigates the semantics of Old English swa 'so'. The word is indicative of diverse sentence interpretations (for example as equatives, conditionals and subordinate clauses of manner). Compositional semantic analysis reveals that nonetheless, its semantic contribution can be unified into two basic functions: marking definiteness and marking predicate abstraction. The interplay of the two and the possibility of covert marking of defin…
(No) variation in the grammar of alternatives
The paper reports the results of an in-depth crosslinguistic study of intervention effects and the grammar of alternatives in a typologically diverse sample of five languages: Palestinian Arabic (Afro-Asiatic, Semitic), Russian (Indo-European, Slavic), Samoan (Austronesian, Oceanic), Turkish (Altaic, Turkic), and Yoruba (Niger-Congo, Defoid). In all of these languages, we find an interesting asymmetry in that focus evaluation interrupts question …
Readings of scalar particles
Different again
One of the open questions in the literature on again-type elements (such as English again and German wieder ‘again’) is how to derive their different readings. Specifically, we can differentiate between a repetitive reading (e.g., some activity happens that has happened before) and a restitutive reading (e.g., some activity that has not happened before restores an earlier state). One controversial question is whether these two readings involve le…
On the Form and Interpretation of Echo Wh-Questions
We argue that echo wh-questions (EwhQs) are autonomous grammatical structures, and that their distinctive formal properties determine their semantics and pragmatics. Echo wh-sentences contain a wh-phrase in which the wh-element is narrowly focused, and a phrasal Q operator. Wh-phrase and Q operator determine a question semantics. Focus on wh determines the discourse appropriateness conditions for EwhQs, namely that an answer to the question be gi…
The diachronic semantics of English again
Contrasting English and German Grammar
"This book offers an introduction to the derivation of meaning that is accessible and worked out to facilitate an understanding of key issues in compositional semantics. The syntactic background offered is generative, the major semantic tool used is set theory."--Back cover
Lucinda Driving Too Fast Again--The Scalar Properties of Ambiguous Than-Clauses
Journal Article Lucinda Driving Too Fast Again—The Scalar Properties of Ambiguous Than-Clauses Get access Sigrid Beck Sigrid Beck Universität Tübingen SIGRID BECK Universität Tübingen Wilhelmstr. 50 72074 Tübingen, Germany [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semantics, Volume 30, Issue 1, February 2013, Pages 1–63, https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffr011 Published: 02 Februar…
DegP scope revisited
Quantifiers in "than"-clauses
The paper reexamines the interpretations that quantifiers in "than"-clauses give rise to. It develops an analysis that combines an interval semantics for the "than"-clause with a standard semantics for the comparative operator. In order to mediate between the two, interpretive mechanisms like maximality and maximal informativity determine selection of a point from an interval. The interval semantics allows local interpretation of the quantifier. …
Multiple Focus
This paper presents the results of an experimental study on multiple focus configurations, that is, structures containing two nested focus-sensitive operators plus two foci supposed to associate with those operators. There has been controversial discussion in the semantic literature regarding whether or not an interpretation is acceptable that corresponds to this association. While the data are unclear, the issue is of considerable theoretical si…
Crosslinguistic variation in comparison constructions
This paper presents parallel sets of data on comparison constructions from 14 languages. On the basis of the crosslinguistic differences we observe, we propose three parameters of language variation. The first parameter concerns the question of whether or not a language’s grammar has incorporated scales into the meanings of gradable predicates. The second parameter differentiates between languages that allow quantification over degrees in the syn…
The Use of Again in 19th-Century English versus Present-Day English
The central claim of this paper is that the use of the adverb again has changed between 19th-century English and present-day English. In particular, restitutive uses were more easily and generally available in the 19th century than they are now. This diachronic change provides evidence for a lexical parameter governing the behavior of adverbs at the syntax/semantics interface. The parameter relates surface form to possible interpretations and thu…
Ruin and restitution
Pluractional Adverbials
This paper investigates the semantics of adverbials like ‘page by page’ and ‘stone upon stone’. An analysis is developed in which sentences containing such adverbials have a pluractional semantics; that is, pluralization affects simultaneously the event- and the individual-argument slot of a predicate. Sternefeld's (1998) system of plural operators is used and extended for this purpose. The adverbial constrains the relation that is pluralized and…
Dog after dog revisited
This paper presents a compositional semantic analysis of pluractional adverbial modifiers like 'dog after dog' and 'one dog after the other'. We propose a division of labour according to which much of the semantics is carried by a family of plural operators. The adverbial itself contributes a semantics that we call pseudoreciprocal
Intervention Effects Follow from Focus Interpretation
There and Back Again
This paper presents a cross-linguistic survey of the interpretations that decomposition adverbs like again permit. The survey distinguishes two different types of predicates that are combined with again: lexical accomplishments like ‘open the door’, on the one hand, and combinations of a motion verb with a directional Prepositional Phrase (PP) on the other (for example, ‘walk to the summit’). There is systematic cross-linguistic variation with th…
Parametric Variation in the Semantics of Comparison
Double Objects Again
In this article, we explore the interaction of the verb again with double object constructions and the corresponding NP+PP constructions. The restitutive reading that again gives rise to in combination with these predicates supports an analysis of double object constructions according to which they contain a small clause with a head predicate HAVE, and an analysis of the corresponding NP+PP constructions that is not transformationally related and…
Pluralities of Questions
This paper proposes a novel semantic analysis of the quantificational variability data discovered by Berman (1991). We suggest that the adverb of quantification in those data quantifies over semantic questions. Its domain is a division of the original question into subquestions, where a legitimate division into subquestions is one in which each member contributes towards the answer to the original question, and together the answers to all subques…
Reciprocals are Definites
A Flexible Approach to Exhaustivity in Questions
Intervention Effects Follow from Focus Interpretation
Double Objects Again
In this article, we explore the interaction of the verb again with double object constructions and the corresponding NP+PP constructions. The restitutive reading that again gives rise to in combination with these predicates supports an analysis of double object constructions according to which they contain a small clause with a head predicate HAVE, and an analysis of the corresponding NP+PP constructions that is not transformationally related and…
Quantified structures as barriers for LF movement
A Flexible Approach to Exhaustivity in Questions
Reciprocals are Definites
DegP scope revisited
The Use of Again in 19th-Century English versus Present-Day English
The central claim of this paper is that the use of the adverb again has changed between 19th-century English and present-day English. In particular, restitutive uses were more easily and generally available in the 19th century than they are now. This diachronic change provides evidence for a lexical parameter governing the behavior of adverbs at the syntax/semantics interface. The parameter relates surface form to possible interpretations and thu…
(No) variation in the grammar of alternatives
The paper reports the results of an in-depth crosslinguistic study of intervention effects and the grammar of alternatives in a typologically diverse sample of five languages: Palestinian Arabic (Afro-Asiatic, Semitic), Russian (Indo-European, Slavic), Samoan (Austronesian, Oceanic), Turkish (Altaic, Turkic), and Yoruba (Niger-Congo, Defoid). In all of these languages, we find an interesting asymmetry in that focus evaluation interrupts question …
The diachronic semantics of English again
Reading, Writing and Speech Problems in Children
The American Orthopsychiatric Association, Inc., 1945 Membership List
The symbol following the address indicates membership status: (C) Charter member; (F) Fellow; (H) Honorary. Numbers in parenthesis indicate year of election to membership. The chief organization connection is followed by the mailing address, which may be either the home address or that of the organization
Computer Art
Quantified structures as barriers for LF movement
On wh- and Operator Scope in Korean
A Flexible Approach to Exhaustivity in Questions
Reciprocals are Definites
Pluralities of Questions
This paper proposes a novel semantic analysis of the quantificational variability data discovered by Berman (1991). We suggest that the adverb of quantification in those data quantifies over semantic questions. Its domain is a division of the original question into subquestions, where a legitimate division into subquestions is one in which each member contributes towards the answer to the original question, and together the answers to all subques…
Parametric Variation in the Semantics of Comparison
Double Objects Again
In this article, we explore the interaction of the verb again with double object constructions and the corresponding NP+PP constructions. The restitutive reading that again gives rise to in combination with these predicates supports an analysis of double object constructions according to which they contain a small clause with a head predicate HAVE, and an analysis of the corresponding NP+PP constructions that is not transformationally related and…
There and Back Again
This paper presents a cross-linguistic survey of the interpretations that decomposition adverbs like again permit. The survey distinguishes two different types of predicates that are combined with again: lexical accomplishments like ‘open the door’, on the one hand, and combinations of a motion verb with a directional Prepositional Phrase (PP) on the other (for example, ‘walk to the summit’). There is systematic cross-linguistic variation with th…
Dog after dog revisited
This paper presents a compositional semantic analysis of pluractional adverbial modifiers like 'dog after dog' and 'one dog after the other'. We propose a division of labour according to which much of the semantics is carried by a family of plural operators. The adverbial itself contributes a semantics that we call pseudoreciprocal
Intervention Effects Follow from Focus Interpretation
Pluractional Adverbials
This paper investigates the semantics of adverbials like ‘page by page’ and ‘stone upon stone’. An analysis is developed in which sentences containing such adverbials have a pluractional semantics; that is, pluralization affects simultaneously the event- and the individual-argument slot of a predicate. Sternefeld's (1998) system of plural operators is used and extended for this purpose. The adverbial constrains the relation that is pluralized and…
Ruin and restitution
Multiple Focus
This paper presents the results of an experimental study on multiple focus configurations, that is, structures containing two nested focus-sensitive operators plus two foci supposed to associate with those operators. There has been controversial discussion in the semantic literature regarding whether or not an interpretation is acceptable that corresponds to this association. While the data are unclear, the issue is of considerable theoretical si…
Crosslinguistic variation in comparison constructions
This paper presents parallel sets of data on comparison constructions from 14 languages. On the basis of the crosslinguistic differences we observe, we propose three parameters of language variation. The first parameter concerns the question of whether or not a language’s grammar has incorporated scales into the meanings of gradable predicates. The second parameter differentiates between languages that allow quantification over degrees in the syn…
The Use of Again in 19th-Century English versus Present-Day English
The central claim of this paper is that the use of the adverb again has changed between 19th-century English and present-day English. In particular, restitutive uses were more easily and generally available in the 19th century than they are now. This diachronic change provides evidence for a lexical parameter governing the behavior of adverbs at the syntax/semantics interface. The parameter relates surface form to possible interpretations and thu…
Quantifiers in "than"-clauses
The paper reexamines the interpretations that quantifiers in "than"-clauses give rise to. It develops an analysis that combines an interval semantics for the "than"-clause with a standard semantics for the comparative operator. In order to mediate between the two, interpretive mechanisms like maximality and maximal informativity determine selection of a point from an interval. The interval semantics allows local interpretation of the quantifier. …
DegP scope revisited
Lucinda Driving Too Fast Again--The Scalar Properties of Ambiguous Than-Clauses
Journal Article Lucinda Driving Too Fast Again—The Scalar Properties of Ambiguous Than-Clauses Get access Sigrid Beck Sigrid Beck Universität Tübingen SIGRID BECK Universität Tübingen Wilhelmstr. 50 72074 Tübingen, Germany [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semantics, Volume 30, Issue 1, February 2013, Pages 1–63, https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffr011 Published: 02 Februar…
Contrasting English and German Grammar
"This book offers an introduction to the derivation of meaning that is accessible and worked out to facilitate an understanding of key issues in compositional semantics. The syntactic background offered is generative, the major semantic tool used is set theory."--Back cover
The diachronic semantics of English again
On the Form and Interpretation of Echo Wh-Questions
We argue that echo wh-questions (EwhQs) are autonomous grammatical structures, and that their distinctive formal properties determine their semantics and pragmatics. Echo wh-sentences contain a wh-phrase in which the wh-element is narrowly focused, and a phrasal Q operator. Wh-phrase and Q operator determine a question semantics. Focus on wh determines the discourse appropriateness conditions for EwhQs, namely that an answer to the question be gi…
Different again
One of the open questions in the literature on again-type elements (such as English again and German wieder ‘again’) is how to derive their different readings. Specifically, we can differentiate between a repetitive reading (e.g., some activity happens that has happened before) and a restitutive reading (e.g., some activity that has not happened before restores an earlier state). One controversial question is whether these two readings involve le…
Linguistics (27 obras) · Philosophy (27 obras) · Computer Science (26 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (21 obras) · Programming language (16 obras) · Natural language processing (15 obras) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (13 obras) · Mathematics (12 obras) · Epistemology (9 obras) · Philosophy of language (7 obras)