24.979 | Fall 2018 | Graduate

Topics in Semantics: Negative Polarity Items

Lecture Notes

LEC # General Topics Lectures
1–2 Introduction: Environments, operators, and the Condition Entailment, entailment-reversal, non-monotonicity, negated DPs (PDF)
3 Environments and modified numeral quantifiers Modified numeral quantifiers with distributive vs. collective predicates, maximal informativity, preview of the explanation (PDF)
4 Strawson entailment and definite descriptions Strawson entailment, surprise, only, singular definite descriptions (PDF)
5 Strawson entailment and definite descriptions, cont’d Extension of the entailment relation, decomposing definites, partitives, distributivity operator (PDF)
6 Strawson entailment and definite descriptions, cont’d Conjunction, type-shifting, event semantics, thematic roles, exhaustivity (PDF)
7 Modality, free choice, and exhaustification Existential modals, exhaustification, revision of the Condition (PDF)
8 Modality, free choice, and exhaustification, cont’d Existence presupposition, constraints and requirements on pruning (PDF)
9 Modality, free choice, and exhaustification, cont’d Exceptives, approximatives, reconstruction, universal modals, mass vs. count nouns (PDF)
10 Towards an explanation Other modal environments, Hindi NPIs, probability, and explanation (PDF)
11 Non-monotonicity and some challenges Additivity, singular definites, accommodation, non-monotone quantifiers, desire predicates (PDF)
12 Non-monotonicity and some challenges, cont’d Intervention, minimizers, and variation (PDF)

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Fall 2018
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Written Assignments
Lecture Notes