Jerry Sadock | University of Chicago (original) (raw)

Papers by Jerry Sadock

Research paper thumbnail of On testing for conversational implicature

Research paper thumbnail of The soft, interpretive underbelly of generative semantics

Syntax and Semantics: Pragmatics, 1978

Research paper thumbnail of The efficacy of anaphoricity in Aleut

Typological Studies in Language, 2009

The unusual inflectional system of Aleut can be understood holistically, as deploying forms, mean... more The unusual inflectional system of Aleut can be understood holistically, as deploying forms, meanings, and forces so as to make efficient use of the contrasts that its limited space of expression types makes available. Indeed, in every natural language, the features of its grammar work together to allow the communication of what needs to be communicated. Every language, I believe, accomplishes a great deal of this work by using the ability of native users of the language to know what else might have been said and how the alternatives would contrast with what is said. All that is unusual about Aleut is that a preconceived idea about how the direct relation between form and meaning works fails more obviously in Aleut than it does in more familiar languages. We expect that definite reference to third persons will always be directly encoded, either in inflection or by means of clitics or independent pronouns. Knut Bergsland, who devoted more time to the study of Aleut than anyone else has, provided convincing evidence that definite reference is not directly coded in Aleut. What is coded is only that there is an additional reference that is “left out as known from context or the situation”. The rest is Saussurean–Gricean holism.

Research paper thumbnail of Autolexical syntax: A theory of parallel grammatical representations

... mind. There I found myself in the company of Ewan Klein and Ivan Sag, whose course on GPSG I ... more ... mind. There I found myself in the company of Ewan Klein and Ivan Sag, whose course on GPSG I audited, and with whom I shared a swel-tering sorority house. ... work. The Stanford lin-guists, especially Ivan Sag, Tom Wasow. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Motors and switches

Research paper thumbnail of A Machine Learning Approach to Modeling Scope Preferences

Computational Linguistics, 2003

This article describes a corpus-based investigation of quantifier scope preferences. Following re... more This article describes a corpus-based investigation of quantifier scope preferences. Following recent work on multimodular grammar frameworks in theoretical linguistics and a long history of combining multiple information sources in natural language processing, scope is treated as a distinct module of grammar from syntax. This module incorporates multiple sources of evidence regarding the most likely scope reading for a sentence and is entirely data-driven. The experiments discussed in this article evaluate the performance of our models in predicting the most likely scope reading for a particular sentence, using Penn Treebank data both with and without syntactic annotation. We wish to focus attention on the issue of determining scope preferences, which has largely been ignored in theoretical linguistics, and to explore different models of the interaction between syntax and quantifier scope.

Research paper thumbnail of Some notes on noun incorporation

Language, 1986

... The internal nominal is an inanimate object, an argument type that is obligatorily incor-pora... more ... The internal nominal is an inanimate object, an argument type that is obligatorily incor-porated (cf. AGF and Sadock 1985b). ... (22) Wayah hdk-k'uht-'i'-sa'. a.lot PROG-grass-be/ grow-PROG 'There is a lot of grass.' (23) Wisi ibi-musa-tuwi-ban. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Speech act distinctions in grammar

Language Typology and Syntactic …, 2007

Page 1. Timothy Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Cambridge: Cambridge Un... more Page 1. Timothy Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Speech Act Distinctions in Grammar Ekkehard König & Peter Siemund 1 Speech acts and sentence types1 ...

Research paper thumbnail of The Modular Architecture of Grammar

Research paper thumbnail of A note on xy languages

Linguistics and Philosophy, 1985

Research paper thumbnail of The Function of the Lexicon in Transformational Generative Grammar . Rudolf P. Botha

American Anthropologist, 1970

Research paper thumbnail of Remarks on a west greenlandic verbal paradigm

Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 1994

Research paper thumbnail of Toward a linguistic theory of speech acts

Abstract Sadock discusses speech acts in the framework of a modified version of generative semant... more Abstract Sadock discusses speech acts in the framework of a modified version of generative semantics. He includes discussion of the range of illocutionary forces encoded by questions and imperatives, performatives, indirect speech acts, adverbs, transderivational ...

Research paper thumbnail of Truth and approximations

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Jul 21, 2011

As George Lakoff (1972) argued, the goodness of such sentences with respect to a certain state of... more As George Lakoff (1972) argued, the goodness of such sentences with respect to a certain state of affairs is a smoothly vary-ing commodity. Example (1) is a better description of the fact that Sam is 5'11" than it is of the fact that Sam is 5'10". there does not seem to be any sharp dividing line between those states of affairs to which (1) is applicable and those to which it is not.

Research paper thumbnail of Noun Incorporation in Greenlandic: A Case of Syntactic Word Formation

Language, 1980

In Greenlandic Eskimo, a polysynthetic language, the word-building apparatus performs much of the... more In Greenlandic Eskimo, a polysynthetic language, the word-building apparatus performs much of the work that is accomplished by the syntax of more familiar languages. In particular, numerous processes in this language create verbs from nouns. Evidence of a ...

Research paper thumbnail of James D. McCawley (1938-1999)

Historiographia Linguistica, 1999

Research paper thumbnail of James D. McCawley (1938-1999)

Historiographia Linguistica, 1999

Research paper thumbnail of Formal features of questions

Formal, Functional, and Interactional Perspectives, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of James D. McCawley (1938-1999)

Historiographia Linguistica, 1999

Research paper thumbnail of Speech act distinctions in syntax

Research paper thumbnail of On testing for conversational implicature

Research paper thumbnail of The soft, interpretive underbelly of generative semantics

Syntax and Semantics: Pragmatics, 1978

Research paper thumbnail of The efficacy of anaphoricity in Aleut

Typological Studies in Language, 2009

The unusual inflectional system of Aleut can be understood holistically, as deploying forms, mean... more The unusual inflectional system of Aleut can be understood holistically, as deploying forms, meanings, and forces so as to make efficient use of the contrasts that its limited space of expression types makes available. Indeed, in every natural language, the features of its grammar work together to allow the communication of what needs to be communicated. Every language, I believe, accomplishes a great deal of this work by using the ability of native users of the language to know what else might have been said and how the alternatives would contrast with what is said. All that is unusual about Aleut is that a preconceived idea about how the direct relation between form and meaning works fails more obviously in Aleut than it does in more familiar languages. We expect that definite reference to third persons will always be directly encoded, either in inflection or by means of clitics or independent pronouns. Knut Bergsland, who devoted more time to the study of Aleut than anyone else has, provided convincing evidence that definite reference is not directly coded in Aleut. What is coded is only that there is an additional reference that is “left out as known from context or the situation”. The rest is Saussurean–Gricean holism.

Research paper thumbnail of Autolexical syntax: A theory of parallel grammatical representations

... mind. There I found myself in the company of Ewan Klein and Ivan Sag, whose course on GPSG I ... more ... mind. There I found myself in the company of Ewan Klein and Ivan Sag, whose course on GPSG I audited, and with whom I shared a swel-tering sorority house. ... work. The Stanford lin-guists, especially Ivan Sag, Tom Wasow. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Motors and switches

Research paper thumbnail of A Machine Learning Approach to Modeling Scope Preferences

Computational Linguistics, 2003

This article describes a corpus-based investigation of quantifier scope preferences. Following re... more This article describes a corpus-based investigation of quantifier scope preferences. Following recent work on multimodular grammar frameworks in theoretical linguistics and a long history of combining multiple information sources in natural language processing, scope is treated as a distinct module of grammar from syntax. This module incorporates multiple sources of evidence regarding the most likely scope reading for a sentence and is entirely data-driven. The experiments discussed in this article evaluate the performance of our models in predicting the most likely scope reading for a particular sentence, using Penn Treebank data both with and without syntactic annotation. We wish to focus attention on the issue of determining scope preferences, which has largely been ignored in theoretical linguistics, and to explore different models of the interaction between syntax and quantifier scope.

Research paper thumbnail of Some notes on noun incorporation

Language, 1986

... The internal nominal is an inanimate object, an argument type that is obligatorily incor-pora... more ... The internal nominal is an inanimate object, an argument type that is obligatorily incor-porated (cf. AGF and Sadock 1985b). ... (22) Wayah hdk-k'uht-'i'-sa'. a.lot PROG-grass-be/ grow-PROG 'There is a lot of grass.' (23) Wisi ibi-musa-tuwi-ban. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Speech act distinctions in grammar

Language Typology and Syntactic …, 2007

Page 1. Timothy Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Cambridge: Cambridge Un... more Page 1. Timothy Shopen (ed.) Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Speech Act Distinctions in Grammar Ekkehard König & Peter Siemund 1 Speech acts and sentence types1 ...

Research paper thumbnail of The Modular Architecture of Grammar

Research paper thumbnail of A note on xy languages

Linguistics and Philosophy, 1985

Research paper thumbnail of The Function of the Lexicon in Transformational Generative Grammar . Rudolf P. Botha

American Anthropologist, 1970

Research paper thumbnail of Remarks on a west greenlandic verbal paradigm

Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 1994

Research paper thumbnail of Toward a linguistic theory of speech acts

Abstract Sadock discusses speech acts in the framework of a modified version of generative semant... more Abstract Sadock discusses speech acts in the framework of a modified version of generative semantics. He includes discussion of the range of illocutionary forces encoded by questions and imperatives, performatives, indirect speech acts, adverbs, transderivational ...

Research paper thumbnail of Truth and approximations

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Jul 21, 2011

As George Lakoff (1972) argued, the goodness of such sentences with respect to a certain state of... more As George Lakoff (1972) argued, the goodness of such sentences with respect to a certain state of affairs is a smoothly vary-ing commodity. Example (1) is a better description of the fact that Sam is 5'11" than it is of the fact that Sam is 5'10". there does not seem to be any sharp dividing line between those states of affairs to which (1) is applicable and those to which it is not.

Research paper thumbnail of Noun Incorporation in Greenlandic: A Case of Syntactic Word Formation

Language, 1980

In Greenlandic Eskimo, a polysynthetic language, the word-building apparatus performs much of the... more In Greenlandic Eskimo, a polysynthetic language, the word-building apparatus performs much of the work that is accomplished by the syntax of more familiar languages. In particular, numerous processes in this language create verbs from nouns. Evidence of a ...

Research paper thumbnail of James D. McCawley (1938-1999)

Historiographia Linguistica, 1999

Research paper thumbnail of James D. McCawley (1938-1999)

Historiographia Linguistica, 1999

Research paper thumbnail of Formal features of questions

Formal, Functional, and Interactional Perspectives, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of James D. McCawley (1938-1999)

Historiographia Linguistica, 1999

Research paper thumbnail of Speech act distinctions in syntax