Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár

Tétel adatlapja
CÍMLAP
Gyuris Beáta
The semantics of contrastive topics in Hungarian

TABLE OF CONTENTS, INTRODUCTION


Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: What is a contrastive topic?

  1. Introduction
  2. Theoretical background on topics
    1. The first theory on information structuring: Brassai
    2. Traditional concepts of information structuring
    3. Recent theories of topics
  3. The notion of topic in contemporary Hungarian linguistics
  4. Some general properties of contrastive topics in Hungarian
    1. Identifying contrastive topics
    2. Non-topic expressions pronounced with a contrastive topic intonation
    3. Some tests for contrastive topichood
  5. Contrastive topics in Hungarian - Topics or foci?
    1. Contrastive topic - a subtype of topic?
    2. Contrastive topic - a subtype of focus?
  6. The concept of the associate of the contrastive topic
  7. Summary

Chapter 2: Presupposition, implicature, and discourse structure

  1. Introduction
  2. Alternative propositions: Implicature or entailment?
  3. Previous theoretical approaches to implicature and discourse congruence
    1. Von Fintel's (1994) theory about the discourse conditions licensing contrastive topics
    2. Büring (1997, 1999) on the presuppositions and implicatures of contrastive topics
    3. Contrastive topic alternatives and compositionality
    4. Kadmon's (2001) theory on discourse congruence
  4. Discourse congruence with Hungarian contrastive topics
    1. Some relevant data
    2. Steps towards a theoretical explanation
  5. Summary

Chapter 3: The scope of contrastive topics

  1. Introduction
  2. Previous accounts of the possibilities of scope reversal between quantificational expressions and negation
    1. Ladd 1980
    2. Horn 1989
    3. De Swart 1998
  3. Previous proposals for capturing the narrow scope readings of contrastive topics in Hungarian
    1. Alberti & Medve 2000
    2. É. Kiss 2000
  4. Property-denoting contrastive topics vs. sentence interpretation
    1. Properties as noun phrase denotations
    2. The property-reading of contrastive topics
    3. The lexical representation of verbs with contrastive topic arguments
  5. Deriving the narrow scope readings of contrastive topics compositionally
  6. Weak points of the 'contrastive topic as property' approach
  7. Summary

Chapter 4: Contrastive topics in factual statements

  1. Informal characterization of the data
  2. Distributive versus collective interpretations
    1. Some data
    2. Collective and distributive readings: the essence of the distinction
    3. Previous approaches to the collective/distributive distinction
  3. A unified approach to scope and collectivity/distributivity: Landman (1996)
    1. Overview
    2. Comments on Landman (1996)
    3. Interpretation of Hungarian sentences in terms of Landman's (1996) event semantics
      1. Sentences without contrastive topics
      2. Sentences with contrastive topics
  4. Krifka's (1989) event semantics and its applicability to Hungarian
    1. General overview
  5. An event semantics of Hungarian sentences with contrastive topics
    1. Logical structure of sentences with contrastive topics
    2. The interpretation procedure associated with sentences containing a contrastive topic
    3. Contrastive topics denoting the logical subject of predication
    4. Contrastive topics contributing to the expression of a property
  6. Predicting well-formedness in an event-based framework
    1. Sentences describing maximal events
    2. Sentences describing atomic events
    3. Contrastive topics with at least n
    4. Collective versus distributive interpretations
  7. Contrastive topics and tripartite structures - adverbial quantifiers as contrastive topics
    1. Adverbs of quantification in non-contrastive readings
      1. Data
      2. Rooth's (1985) theory on the meaning of adverbs of quantification
      3. A formal account of the meaning of Hungarian adverbs of quantification
    2. On the interpretation of adverbs of quantification in the role of contrastive topic
      1. Developing the formal apparatus 1 - simple sentences
      2. Developing the formal apparatus 2 - complex sentences with focused when clauses and 'strong' adverbs of quantification
      3. Weak adverbs of quantification as contrastive topics
  8. Summary

Chapter 5: Contrastive topics in modal and intensional statements

  1. Data
  2. The semantics of modals
  3. Integrating the semantics of modals with that of the contrastive topic
    1. Truth-conditional meaning and alternative propositions
    2. Calculating the implicature
    3. Distributive versus group readings of contrastive topic DPs
  4. Formal representation of the truth-conditional meaning of modal assertions
  5. Some exceptions
  6. Summary

References


Introduction

This dissertation is about contrastive topics in Hungarian, and will propose answers to the following questions:

- What is the essence of 'contrastive topichood'? In what respects are contrastive topics similar to ordinary topics? In what respects are contrastive topics similar to foci?

- What are the presuppositions and implicatures associated with contrastive topics?

- In what way can contrastive topicalization change the truth conditions of sentences?

- Why can quantificational expressions in contrastive topic take narrow scope with respect to other preverbal quantifiers?

- How can it be explained that certain, syntactically well-formed sentences with contrastive topics have no interpretation?

In Chapter 1, some characteristic features of contrastive topics are discussed. We give an overview of some of the most important concepts of information structuring, including topic and focus, as they are used in general linguistics, as well as in contemporary Hungarian syntax. We will investigate the prosodic, syntactic and semantic properties of constituents which have been referred to as contrastive topics and of the sentences containing them, and propose an answer to the question whether contrastive topics constitute a subtype of topics, or they are more similar to foci, as claimed in some theoretical accounts.

Chapter 2 investigates the presuppositions of contrastive topics, their implicatures and the properties of discourses they can be part of. It will be argued that since the propositions expressed by sentences containing contrastive topics could also be expressed by other constructions, the whole point of using a sentence with the contrastive topic is to convey the particular implicature which is due to the contrastive topic, namely, that there are alternative propositions which are neither entailed nor contradicted by the one expressed by the sentence in which the contrastive topic appears. It will also be shown that the impossibility of certain potential sentences with contrastive topics can be attributed to the fact that there is no question which they could be uttered as answers to.

In Chapter 3, some previous accounts of the possible narrow scope of quantificational expressions in contrastive topic proposed for Hungarian as well as other languages are reviewed and compared against a wide range of data. On the basis of the suggestion by Alberti and Medve (2000), according to which (non-referential) contrastive topics denote properties, a formal system of representing the meaning of sentences with contrastive topics is built up, which can correctly derive the readings of sentences with contrastive topic DPs where they take narrow scope with respect to their associate.

In Chapter 4, a new formal system of respesenting the meanings of factual sentences with contrastive topics is developed within the framework of event semantics, by which it becomes possible to derive alternative propositions systematically. A new definition of what counts as an alternative proposition is provided. It is argued that the unacceptability of sentences with quantificational expressions in contrastive topic is to be attributed to a clash between the intended truth-conditional meaning of the sentence and its implicatures, introduced by the contrastive topic itself. It will be shown that by considering sentences with contrastive topics to be event descriptions, several puzzling semantic properties of contrastive topic DPs can be accounted for, like the availability of collective versus distributive readings, or their scopal behaviour.

In Chapter 5, the interpretation of modal/intensional statements containing contrastive topics is discussed. It is proposed that by assuming that these sentences introduce other modal/intensional propositions as alternatives, and assuming that their denotation could be represented in terms of Kratzer's (1991) theory using possible worlds, the range of their possible interpretations can be accounted for.

Although this dissertation does not intend to make any specific claims about the semantics of contrastive topics in languages other than Hungarian, it will be indicated that many of its proposals could be adopted to handle similar phenomena in other languages, particularly in German. The investigation of the exact correspondences between the contrastive topics of Hungarian and German, and possibly other languages will, however, be left for further research.

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