Measuring and Counting Events

Questions

1. In The boys ate two sausages each, is each a VP-adjunct or does it form a constituent with two sausages? How can we tell?

2. Safir & Stowell (1988) and Choe (1987) observe a number of characteristics of the distribution of binominal/shifted each. What are they?

3. Compare and contrast English binominal each, Korean -ssik, German je, and Polish po with respect to their empirical characteristics.

Homework

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Questions

1. What is the content of what Balusu calls the “plurality requirement” in ‘2 2 monkeys jumped’?

2. Should it be regarded as an entailment? Why or why not?

3. Balusu argues that numeral reduplication in Telugu uniformly involves event key readings, even in the apparent participant-key case. (a) What fact does he gain an explanation of by assuming this? (b) How does the participant-key reading arise in that case, according to Balusu? (c) How do participant-key readings arise in ordinary cases, according to Balusu?

4. Suppose we have an event e1 comprising sub-events e1a, e1b, and e1c. In e1a, the monkeys m1 and m2 jumped. In e1b, the monkeys m2 and m3 jumped. In e1c, the monkeys m1 and m3 jumped. That is to say, the ‘agent’ thematic role maps each of e1’s sub-events to a mereological sum of two monkeys, and these monkey-sums overlap. All of the sub-events of e1 satisfy the predicate ‘jumped’.
   A. Does it follow already, given only what we have said so far, that e1 satisfies the predicate ‘jumped’?
   B. What is the agent of e1? Let's make the cumulativity assumption for thematic roles (p. 34).
   C. In this situation, is Balusu’s plurality requirement (30b) true, again given the cumulativity assumption for thematic roles? Assume that "jumped(X,e)" can be rewritten as "jumped(e) and X = agent(e)".
   D. How might Balusu’s plurality requirement (30b) be restated within Champollion’s framework?

Homework assignment

Event semantics self-test

Questions/Challenges

Part A. Give Champollion-style derivations for the following sentences:

1. Two monkeys jumped

2. The kids saw two monkeys

3. The kids [ each [ saw two monkeys ] ]

4. Die Jungen haben [ jeweils [ zwei Affen gesehen ] ]

5. The kids saw [ [ two monkeys ] each ]

6. [ [ Two interpreters ] each ] accompanied the visitors

7. [ Jeweils [ twei Jungen ] ] [ standen Wache ]

Part B. On Cable (2014)

1. For each of (27)-(30), characterize the scenario as "collective", "cumulative", "participant-distributive", or "event-distributive". In which scenarios is a sentence with an adnominal distributive numeral true in Tlingit? In which scenarios is the corresponding sentence without the distributive marker true?

2. Compare and contrast: In what ways are Cable's analysis of (60b) and Champollion's analysis of the analogous adnominal "each" sentence similar? In what ways are they different? Is there a scenario that one would be true in but the other would not? Vice versa? Are there any advantages to one vs. the other that you see (for Tlingit or adnominal "each")?

Homework

Lambda Calculator file

1. Descriptively, how are DIST and MULT similar, and how are they different?

2. Provide a full derivation tree for (10a), the suitcase sentence with MULT, based on the theory they give.

3. For each of the scenarios depicted in Pictures A-D: do the truth conditions in (27b) include them or not?

4. For each of the scenarios depicted in Pictures A-D: Does the formula you derived in 2 include them or not?

5. Are DIST and MULT are more like "filters" or more like "distributive operators" in Kuhn & Aristodemo's sense? Why?

6. The DIST/MULT contrast is a bit reminiscent of the ALT/REP contrast in French Sign Language discussed by Kuhn & Aristodemo. If you had to pick between ALT and REP, which one would you say DIST is more similar to and why? What is different about it? Does this comparison raise any empirical questions about FSL or Seri?

7. If you had to pick between ALT and REP, which one would you say MULT is more similar to and why? What is different about it? Does this comparison raise any empirical questions about FSL or Seri?

1. Consider the sentence "Professor Heim met two students per week (during the summer)". Suppose that during the summer Professor Heim met students Ada and Björn every other week, and Celine and Django in the intervening weeks. Is the sentence predicted to be true under P&T's analysis, even though it requires a 1-to-1 match between the subevents?

2. How would "Professor Heim met two students per week" be analyzed under a ratio analysis?

3. Where do the predictions of a distributivity-based vs. ratio-based analysis differ? Is there any data that decides between them for English per?

4. Is Hungarian -nkent a ratio marker, distributivity marker, or both?