María Biezma

This paper presents an analysis of then that appeals to discourse structure. I argue that then does not make any truth-conditional contribution but rather coordinates an anaphoric relation between consecutive discourse-moves. The meaningcontribution ofthenis captured in terms of felicity conditions: then requires that two propositions enter into a ‘causal explanatory claim’-relation in which one (the antecedent) provides the ‘reasons’ for the other (the consequent). This proposal targets conditionals and across discourse and considers discourse structure as a key factor in explaining its behavior.

In their pioneering work on Urdu/Hindi polar kya, Bhatt and Dayal (2020) propose a new class of question particles, polar question particles. As part of their analysis, the authors also argue that alternative questions (AltQs) in Urdu/Hindi are disjunctions of polar questions (PolQs). However, Bhatt and Dayal’s (2020) foundational work leaves unexplained potential counterexamples to their proposal with respect to embedded contexts, as well as not doing justice to speakers’ intuitions regarding the use of kya to sometimes trigger sarcasm or politeness inferences. In this paper, we pay attention to those cases in conjunction with other available empirical observations to paint a more explanatory picture of what kya is and what kya does. In this picture, kya is a focus-sensitive particle conveying the attitude holder’s uncertainty. We also argue that an analysis of Urdu/Hindi AltQs as disjunction of PolQs (across the board) is untenable in view of the new empirical evidence.

The literature on mock language (ML) is centered around cases of language appropriation reproducing derogatory stereotypes of the speakers whose language is appropriated. However, ML, understood as the integration of linguistic features of a language not native to the speaker in a discourse that is otherwise in a different language, is not necessarily derogatory. I offer a model that explains the interpretation of ML across cases using US European-American English speakers as the empirical domain. The key to understanding ML lies in the fact that speakers presuppose an ideology prevailing in the context of utterance. I appeal to perspectives (à la Camp) as part of ideologies and responsible for stereotypes, and argue that ML is a meta-frame. This allows me to link derogatory ML to slurs.

Spanish allows for bare _if_-clauses (BIFs), i.e., _if_-clauses lacking a matrix clause, which display a complex array of meanings different from their stereotypical subordinated counterparts. In this paper, I derive their interpretations through discourse-level interactions, building on exhaustivity inferences associated with intonation, as well as reasoning familiar from so-called _biscuit conditionals_. The key to the analysis is a dynamic view of context that includes a way of tracking proposals that await evaluation (before, e.g., they are accepted/rejected). The view that Spanish BIFs refer back to content awaiting evaluation allows us to integrate the different ingredients involved in the construction of meaning without ad hoc theoretical stipulations.

Previous processing studies have shown that constituents that are prosodically marked as focus lead to an activation of alternatives. We investigate the processing of constituents that are prosodically marked as contrastive topics. In German, contrastive topics are prosodically realized by prenuclear L*+H accents. Our study tests a) whether prenuclear accents (as opposed to nuclear accents) are able to activate contrastive alternatives, b) whether they do this in the same way as constituents prosodically marked as focus with nuclear accents do, which is important for semantic modeling and c) whether the activation of alternatives is caused by pitch accent type (prenuclear L*+H as contrastive accent vs. prenuclear L+H* as non-contrastive accent) or by differences in F0-excursion (related to prominence). We conducted two visual-world eye-tracking studies, in which German listeners heard declarative utterances (e.g., The swimmer wanted to put on flappers) and watched displays that depicted four printed words: one that was a contrastive alternative to the subject noun (e.g., diver), one that was non-contrastively related to it (e.g., sports), the object (e.g., flappers), which had to be clicked, and an unrelated distractor. Experiment 1 presented participants with two naturally produced intonation conditions, a broad focus control condition with a prenuclear L+H* accent on the subject and a contrastive topic condition with a prenuclear L*+H accent. The results showed that participants fixated more on the contrastive alternative when the subject was produced with an L*+H accent, with the same effect size and timing as reported for focus constituents. Experiment 2 resynthesized the stimuli so that peak height and F0-excursion were the same across intonation conditions. The effect was the same, but the time course was slightly later. Our results suggest that prenuclear L*+H immediately leads to the activation of alternatives during online processing, and that the F0-excursion of the accent lends little. The results are discussed with regard to the processing of contrastive focus accents and theories of contrastive topic.

In this paper we argue for a unified semantics for hypothetical conditionals, hc s, e.g. _if it rains, we’ll cancel the picnic_, and biscuit conditionals, bc s, e.g., _if you are hungry, there are biscuits on the sideboard_. We side with recent literature in proposing that differences in the interpretation are related to (in)dependence between antecedent and consequent, but we move beyond current accounts in spelling out a characterization of independence that is actually predictive. We further establish a systematic link between _if_-constructions and discourse structure, providing a dynamic update model that integrates the QUD, and thus the intentional discourse-structure. We argue that in bc s the antecedent sets up the question that is addressed by the consequent, and show that rescuing (Gricean) relevance in face of independence gives rise to implicatures corresponding to the different flavors associated with bc s. Crucially, we argue, this is the same mechanism responsible for our understanding that in the hc above, for example, it is the rain that will cause the cancellation of the picnic. Along the way we notice how the phenomena observed in _if_-constructions are also replicated in other quantificational structures. Ultimately, there is not much that is biscuit-specific. Their interpretation is the result of a conspiracy among semantics, dynamic update and intentional discourse-structure.

This paper gives an account of the differences between polar and alternative questions, as well as an account of the division of labor between compositional semantics and pragmatics in interpreting these types of questions. Alternative questions involve a strong exhaustivity presupposition for the mentioned alternatives. We derive this compositionally from the meaning of the final falling tone and its interaction with the pragmatics of questioning in discourse. Alternative questions are exhaustive in two ways: they exhaust the space of epistemic possibilities, as well as the space of discourse possibilities (the Question Under Discussion). In contrast, we propose that polar questions are the opposite: they present just one alternative that is necessarily non-exhaustive. The account explains a range of response patterns to alternative and polar questions, as well as differences and similarities between the two types of questions.