Can questions be directly disjoined? Anna Szabolcsi, NYU CLS 51 1 Agenda • Observe that complement questions can be either directly or indirectly conjoined, but they can only be indirectly disjoined. • What theories of questions and coordination predict this difference? • Look at Partition theory (Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984), Inquisitive Semantics (Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009, Ciardelli et al. 2012) 2 Two ways to coordinate clauses A, B • First coordinate, then possibly lift (direct method) A and/or B =lift=> P[P(A and/or B)] P[P(A and/or B)] (Mary_found_out) = Mary_found_out (A and/or B) • First lift, then coordinate (indirect method) A =lift=> P[P(A)] B =lift=> P[P(B)] P[P(A)] and/or P[P(B)] = P[P(A) and/or P(B)] P[P(A) and/or P(B)](Mary_found_out) = Mary_found_out A and/or Mary_found_out B 3 Lifting A to P[P(A)] is nothing but designating A to be the argument of some P. Is lifting just a free type‐shifting operation? Subordinating complementizers (i.e. not pure clause‐ typers) can be seen as lifters. When lifting interacts with coordination, the two methods may make a semantic difference. Some support from English that‐complements, and from languages that have subordinators also in wh‐ complements (Hungarian, Korean, etc.). 4 Presence of subordinators correlates with what units are lifted It surprised Sue (1a) that John was drunk and Mary was driving. =/= (1b) that John was drunk and that Mary was driving. (2a) that John drank or Mary gambled. =/= (2b) that John drank or that Mary gambled. (3a) I believe that John drinks or Mary gambles. =/= (3b) ?? I believe that John drinks or that Mary gambles. (4) He told me which girl he likes and #(that) he is going to ask her out. 5 Hungarian hogy is an invariant subordinator Tudom, hogy hol van Mari. wh‐complement know‐I subord where is Mari Tudom, hogy Mari Londonban van. declarative c. know‐I subord Mari London‐in is Tudom, hogy Mari Londonban van‐e. polar int c. know‐I subord Mari London‐in is‐interrog Azt akarom, hogy Mari Londonba menjen. subjunct. that want‐I subord Mari London‐to go.subj.3sg 6 In complement questions, it is optional to have SUBORD in each conjunct, but obligatory to have SUBORD in each disjunct János megtudta, ... John found.out hogy mit csinálsz és (hogy) hol laksz. SUBORD what you.do and SUBORD where you.live hogy mit csinálsz vagy #(hogy) hol laksz. SUBORD what you.do or SUBORD where you.live 7 Korean, subordinator ci na‐nun ... alayo I‐top ... know • A‐ka etiey sal‐ko B‐ka etiey sal‐nun‐ci A‐nom where live‐and B‐nom where live‐prs‐subord • # A‐ka etiey sal‐kena B‐ka etiey sal‐nun‐ci A‐nom where live‐or B‐nom where live‐prs‐subord • A‐ka etiey sal‐nun‐ci kuliko B‐ka etiey sal‐nun‐ci and • A‐ka etiey sal‐nun‐ci hokun B‐ka etiey sal‐nun‐ci or 8 Agenda • We found that complement questions can be either directly or indirectly conjoined, but they can only be indirectly disjoined. • What theories of questions and coordination predict this difference? • Consider Partition theory (Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984), Inquisitive Semantics (Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009, Ciardelli et al. 2012) 9 Question meanings partition the set of worlds (Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984 = G&S) Semantically, a question demands a unique true and complete answer (although pragmatically, it accepts partial and mention‐some answers). [[Who sings?]] = ww[ x[sing(w)(x)] = x[sing(w)(x)] ] worlds where just Mary sings words where just Bill sings worlds where both M & B sing worlds where no one sings 10 Partition semantics gets the conjunction of questions right [[Who sings?]] [[Who dances?]] = ww[ x[sing(w)(x)] = x[sing(w)(x)]  x[dance(w)(x)] = x[dance(w)(x)] ] Moreover, the conjunction qualifies as a question. It has a unique true and complete answer: Mary and Bill sing and Bill dances. ‐‐‐ Hamblin and Karttunen don't get conjunction right. {p: x[p={w: sing(w)(x)}}  {p: x[p={w: dance(w)(x)}} = {p: x[p={w: sing(w)(x)}  p ={w: dance(w)(x)}} =  11 What does it say about disjunction? [[Who sings?]] [[Who dances?]] = ww[ x[sing(w)(x)] = x[sing(w)(x)]  x[dance(w)(x)] = x[dance(w)(x)] ] But the disjunction does not qualify as a question. It does not have a unique true and complete answer. It offers a choice as to which question you answer: Mary and Bill sing. Bill dances. ‐‐‐ R is not transitive, so not an equivalence, doesn't partition W. w1 w2 w3 sing(m) sing(m) sing(m) <w1,w2>R dance(b) dance(b) dance(b) <w2,w3>R <w1,w3>R 12 G&S: Lift before disjoining and thus distribute the embedding predicate over the complements who_sings =lift=> P[P(w*)(who_sings)] where P is the same type as I_know, I_wonder, Tell_me, etc. [[who sings or who dances]] = P[P(w*)(who_sings)]  P[P(w*)(who_dances)] = P[P(w*)(who_sings)  P(w*)(who_dances)] ‐‐‐ ans(w*)(p,Q) iff w[p(w) Q(w*)(w)] ANS(w*)(p, who_sings_or_who_dances) iff ans(w*)(p, w w [x[sing (w)(x)] = x[sing (w)(x)]]) or ans(w*)(p, w w [x[dance (w)(x)] = x[dance (w)(x)]]) 13 On the right track! The partition theory predicts a conjunction – disjunction contrast. A remaining wrinkle: Main vs. complement (Szabolcsi 1997, Krifka 2001) Who sings or who dances? dubious Who sings? Or, who dances? change of mind We found out who sings or who dances. perfect Who sings and who dances? perfect We found out who sings and who dances. perfect 14 Lift complements only Szabolcsi 1997 In G&S, lifting is unconstrained. But, lifting A to P[P(A)] is nothing but designating A to be an argument of some P. Not right for a main clause. "Lift complements only" has important consequences for pair‐list readings, which exhibit large‐scale contrasts between main and complement clauses. That was the focus of Szabolcsi 1997; not pertinent here. From now on, only complement coordinations will be considered, because the data are much clearer there. 15 The good prediction for conjunction vs. disjunction came from partition semantics But Heim 1994, Beck & Rullmann 1999, Mascarenhas 2009, Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009, Klinedinst & Rothschild 2011, Spector & Egré 2014, Theiler 2014, ... argue against it. Some complements lack strongly exhaustive (SE) readings, others are ambiguous btw SE and weakly (WE) or intermediate exhaustive (IE) ones. E.g. Cremers & Chemla 2014: false (SE) and true (WE/IE) judgments both significant 16 Inquisitive Semantics https://sites.google.com/site/inquisitivesemantics/Home In InqS, question meanings are not required to partition the set of worlds. This affords an account of conditional questions: adam adam eve bonnie If Adam is the father, clyde clyde is Eve the mother / eve bonnie who is the mother? 17 Could Inquisitive Semantics predict the conjunction‐disjunction contrast? Questions (and declaratives) are non‐empty, downward closed sets of classical propositions. adam adam Who is the mother? eve bonnie {w: mw(e)} {w: mw(b)} = {{ae, ce}, {ae}, {ce}, }  clyde clyde {{ab, cb}, {ab}, {cb}, } eve bonnie 18 Could Inquisitive Semantics predict the conjunction‐disjunction contrast? In InqS, questions (and declaratives) are non‐empty, downward closed sets of classical propositions. adam adam Who is the father? eve bonnie {w: fw(a)} {w: fw(c)} clyde clyde eve bonnie 19 Q1 Q2 In InqS, questions (and declaratives) are non‐empty, downward closed sets of classical propositions. adam adam Who is the father? eve bonnie {w: fw(a)} {w: fw(c)}  clyde clyde Who is the mother? eve bonnie {w: mw(e)} {w: mw(b)} 20 Q1 Q2 Questions (and declaratives) are non‐empty, downward closed sets of classical propositions. adam adam Who is the father? eve bonnie {w: fw(a)} {w: fw(c)}  clyde clyde Who is the mother? eve bonnie {w: mw(e)} {w: mw(b)} 21 Not there yet... If the disjunction is simply the join,  of the two questions, then it is predicted to be as good as the conjunction (meet, ). There is no necessity to lift‐ and‐distribute in either case. But Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009, AnderBois 2012 make distinctions beyond plain algebraic ones: A question is both inquisitive and non‐informative.  is inquisitive iff it contains more than one alternative.  is non‐informative iff its alternatives cover the set of worlds (do not exclude any possibility). 22 If OR flattened out the disjuncts, then each disjunct would look like this: adam adam Their  would be eve bonnie the same. Then Q1 OR Q2 clyde clyde would not qualify as a eve bonnie question. Note that now OR =/= , just something defined in terms of . 23 Does OR flatten out the disjuncts? Roelofsen & Farkas 2014: "Following Zimmermann (2000), Pruitt (2007), Biezma (2009), Biezma and Rawlins (2012), and Roelofsen (2013b), we will think of these types of sentences as lists. ... The only non‐standard provision is that the non‐inquisitive projection operator, !, is applied to every list item. The rationale for this is that every list item is to be seen, intuitively speaking, as one block, i.e., as contributing a single possibility to the proposition expressed by the list as a whole. This is ensured by applying !, which, roughly speaking, takes a set of possibilities and returns its union... Rule for translating the body of a list: [item1 or . . . or itemn] > !1  ...  !n ." 24 Further potential support for flattening • from Dynamic Semantics, where at least the baseline version of OR is internally and externally static, in distinction to AND: Mary has finished a book and/#or she has thrown it away. Mary got this from the NYT or a French paper. ?? She bought it at the airport. • from sluicing as anaphora to issues (inquisitive propositions), AnderBois 2010: Bill saw Joe or {some girl / Mary or Sue}, but we have no idea which #(girl / of M or S). Both connections call for further investigation. 25 The need to lift is back  In sum, The conjunction-disjunction contrast does not fall out from the basic semantics of questions and disjunctions. However, if theories impose constraints on what meanings qualify as question meanings (cf. partitional / inquisitive) and perhaps elaborate on what OR does, in addition to invoking , then, luckily, there is more than one way to predict the contrast. 26 Selected references AnderBois 2010. Sluicing as anaphora to issues. SALT. AnderBois 2012. Focus and uninformativity in Yukatek Maya questions. Natural Language Semantics. Ciardelli, Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2012. Inquisitive Semantics. NASSLLI lecture notes. Cremers & Chemla 2014. A psycholinguistic study of the exhaustive readings of embedded questions. Journal of Semantics. Groenendijk & Stokhof 1984. The Semantics of Questions and the Pragmatics of Answers. PhD. 27 Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009. Inquisitive semantics and pragmatics. Tbilisi. Haida & Repp 2013. Disjunction in wh‐questions. NELS. Heim 1994. Interrogative semantics and Karttunen's semantics of know. IATL. Krifka 2001. Quantification into question acts. Natural Language Semantics. Roelofsen & Farkas 2014. Polarity particle responses as a window onto the interpretation of questions and assertions. To appear in Language. Szabolcsi 1997. Quantifiers in pair‐list readings. In Ways of Scope Taking. Theiler 2014. A Multitude of Answers. Embedded Questions in Typed Inquisitive Semantics. MSc.