Daniel Gutzmann | Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (original) (raw)

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Papers by Daniel Gutzmann

Journal of Pragmatics, 2011

Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of q... more Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of quotation mark usage. In this paper, we have the somewhat ambitious aim of outlining an all-encompassing theory of quotation in (written) natural language. We first provide a naïve but neutral definition of quotation – quotation is everything between a pair of quotation marks – followed by a brief typology. Then, we develop an account of quotation which relies mainly on pragmatic mechanisms in order to explain what role quotation marks play in achieving communicative ends of writers. Quotation marks, we argue, are best understood as minimal pragmatic markers that block the stereotypical interpretation of the expression they enclose. They thereby indicate that some alternative interpretation ought to be inferred. We then address some worries about our view in order to clarify the aim and scope of our proposal as well as some deep-rooted philosophical preconceptions about quotation. Finally, we present the results of a small corpus study which we consider a confirmation of the predictions our account makes.

Stressed modal particles (MPs) have always been somehow mysterious because (i) it is expected tha... more Stressed modal particles (MPs) have always been somehow mysterious because (i) it is expected that they should not be able to be stressed in the first place, and because (ii) it is not clear what the contribution of this stress is, and because (iii) it remains unclear whether stressed MPs are the same MPs as their unstressed variants or whether they are distinct MPs of their own. This paper suggests that an answer to these question lies in a connection between MPs and verum focus (Höhle 1992). The starting point is the observation that stressed MPs cannot occur in sentences which already exhibit verum focus. I argue that the contribution of a stressed modal particles consists the contribution of its unstressed variant plus the contribution of verum focus. In order to illustrate this connection, I describe how their interaction can be captured in a multidimensional semantics and, to further illustrate their relation, look at the interaction between these two phenomena with sentence mood.

Like many languages, German exhibits different possibilities for intensifying the meaning of a gr... more Like many languages, German exhibits different possibilities for intensifying the meaning of a gradable adjective. The most obvious ways are by means of degree-morphology (-er for the comparative;-st for the superlative) or degree word like very 'sehr'. However, in this paper, we want to examine a special class of degree items, which we call expressive intensifiers (EIs) and which mainly belong to informal varieties of German.

This paper provides an descriptive and terminological overview of the varieties of use-conditiona... more This paper provides an descriptive and terminological overview of the varieties of use-conditional meaning. Use-conditional meaning and expressions that convey it can be found across all layers of natural languages, ranging from the word level down to the phonological level and up to the syntactic one, and even beyond that. I will present examples of all these varieties and introduce three features according to which use-conditional items (UCIs) can be classified into five different types. The feature of functionality [± f ] concerns the question of whether a UCI needs an argument in order to express complete use-conditions. The feature of 2-dimensionality [±2d] tells us whether a UCI also expresses truth-conditional content, whereas the feature of resource-sensitivity [±rs], which is only applicable for [+f, −2d] expressions, accounts for the fact that some functional UCIs do not pass their argument back. The distribution of these three features leads to 5 kinds of UCIs, called isolated expletive UCIs [−f, −2d], isolated mixed UCIs [−f, +2d], functional expletive UCIs [+f, −2d, −rs], functional shunting UCIs [+f, −2d, +rs], and functional mixed UCIs [+f, +2d]. Finally, I discuss the properties that Potts (2007b) suggested as characteristic features of expressive UCIs and show that only a subset of them holds for UCIs in general.

Abstract e accent pattern known as verum focus is, as the term coined by Höhle () suggests, commo... more Abstract e accent pattern known as verum focus is, as the term coined by Höhle () suggests, commonly understood as a focus accent on a covert operator that resides in the C-domain of the clause and whose function is to mark a proposition as true. is widespread analysis, which I call the focus accent thesis or F, is however not explicitly spelled out.

Romero & Han () show that VERUM can also be realized by certain morphems (eg really) or by word o... more Romero & Han () show that VERUM can also be realized by certain morphems (eg really) or by word order variation like negation preposing. They provide a formal definition of VERUM as a conversational empistemic operator that is» used not to assert that the speaker is entirely certain about the truth of p, but to assert that the speaker is certain that p should be added to the Common Ground (CG).«(Romero & Han:).

Abstract In this paper we study the semantics of so-called verum focus from the point of view of ... more Abstract In this paper we study the semantics of so-called verum focus from the point of view of a multi-dimensional semantic model. As coined by Höhle (1992), verum focus is non-contrastive focus on the verb or a complementizer located in C in German, and it is a way of realizing the corresponding operator VERUM. In the small amount of previous literature, VERUM has been treated as a pure semantic operator.

Abstract The prepositional phrase (PP) in German has complex morpho-syntactic properties and ther... more Abstract The prepositional phrase (PP) in German has complex morpho-syntactic properties and therefore constitutes a challenge for children both in first and in second language acquisition. The prototypical German PP is headed by a preposition selecting for a determiner phrase (DP). Beside using a determiner and correctly marking the morpho-syntactic features inside the DP, the children have to learn that there is a prepositional element that is the head of the PP.

Abstract In his influential paper, François Récanati (2001) distinguishes two kinds of quotation,... more Abstract In his influential paper, François Récanati (2001) distinguishes two kinds of quotation, namely 'closed'and 'open', and develops a pragmatic view on open quotation. Facing some alleged arguments against his pragmatic view, he argues for a distinction between the compositionally articulated content of an utterance (c-content) and its intuitive truth-conditional content.

Abstract In his work on expressives and conventional implicatures, Potts (2005, 2007b) develops t... more Abstract In his work on expressives and conventional implicatures, Potts (2005, 2007b) develops the multidimensional logic LCI to formalize their main properties. In the type system of LCI, Potts implements two empirical claims.(i) There are no expressive modifiers, that is, expressions that have expressive type terms as their argument.(ii) There are no mixed expressives that contribute both descriptive and expressive content.

Although the German ethical dative mir is an inflected form of the personal pronoun ich, it has b... more Although the German ethical dative mir is an inflected form of the personal pronoun ich, it has been classified as a modal particle -an analysis which is supported by the syntactic and semantic properties of the ethical dative mir. Syntactically the ethical dative cannot be fronted or coordinated; neither can it receive main stress. Semantically it can be neither focused nor be in the scope of an operator, and it is not part of the propositional content of the sentence in which it occurs. In this paper, I provide an alternative account to explain its syntactic and semantic properties without treating a personal pronoun as a modal particle. Following the theory of conventional implicatures developed by Christopher Potts , the ethical dative can be analysed as an expression of type 〈t a , t c 〉 that yields a second proposition of type t c , which is independent from the proposition to which it is applied. This second proposition is defined by the conventionalized meaning of the ethical dative and expresses -though not propositionally articulated -that the speaker has some personal interest in the hearer's execution of the action requested. With this semantics for the ethical dative in mind, one can explain its syntactic properties without postulating a modal particle mir.

Fuel and Energy Abstracts, Jan 1, 2011

Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of q... more Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of quotation mark usage. In this paper, we have the somewhat ambitious aim of outlining an all-encompassing theory of quotation in (written) natural language. We first provide a naïve but neutral definition of quotation – quotation is everything between a pair of quotation marks – followed by a brief typology. Then, we develop an account of quotation which relies mainly on pragmatic mechanisms in order to explain what role quotation marks play in achieving communicative ends of writers. Quotation marks, we argue, are best understood as minimal pragmatic markers that block the stereotypical interpretation of the expression they enclose. They thereby indicate that some alternative interpretation ought to be inferred. We then address some worries about our view in order to clarify the aim and scope of our proposal as well as some deep-rooted philosophical preconceptions about quotation. Finally, we present the results of a small corpus study which we consider a confirmation of the predictions our account makes.

Journal of Pragmatics, 2011

Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of q... more Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of quotation mark usage. In this paper, we have the somewhat ambitious aim of outlining an all-encompassing theory of quotation in (written) natural language. We first provide a naïve but neutral definition of quotation – quotation is everything between a pair of quotation marks – followed by a brief typology. Then, we develop an account of quotation which relies mainly on pragmatic mechanisms in order to explain what role quotation marks play in achieving communicative ends of writers. Quotation marks, we argue, are best understood as minimal pragmatic markers that block the stereotypical interpretation of the expression they enclose. They thereby indicate that some alternative interpretation ought to be inferred. We then address some worries about our view in order to clarify the aim and scope of our proposal as well as some deep-rooted philosophical preconceptions about quotation. Finally, we present the results of a small corpus study which we consider a confirmation of the predictions our account makes.

Stressed modal particles (MPs) have always been somehow mysterious because (i) it is expected tha... more Stressed modal particles (MPs) have always been somehow mysterious because (i) it is expected that they should not be able to be stressed in the first place, and because (ii) it is not clear what the contribution of this stress is, and because (iii) it remains unclear whether stressed MPs are the same MPs as their unstressed variants or whether they are distinct MPs of their own. This paper suggests that an answer to these question lies in a connection between MPs and verum focus (Höhle 1992). The starting point is the observation that stressed MPs cannot occur in sentences which already exhibit verum focus. I argue that the contribution of a stressed modal particles consists the contribution of its unstressed variant plus the contribution of verum focus. In order to illustrate this connection, I describe how their interaction can be captured in a multidimensional semantics and, to further illustrate their relation, look at the interaction between these two phenomena with sentence mood.

Like many languages, German exhibits different possibilities for intensifying the meaning of a gr... more Like many languages, German exhibits different possibilities for intensifying the meaning of a gradable adjective. The most obvious ways are by means of degree-morphology (-er for the comparative;-st for the superlative) or degree word like very 'sehr'. However, in this paper, we want to examine a special class of degree items, which we call expressive intensifiers (EIs) and which mainly belong to informal varieties of German.

This paper provides an descriptive and terminological overview of the varieties of use-conditiona... more This paper provides an descriptive and terminological overview of the varieties of use-conditional meaning. Use-conditional meaning and expressions that convey it can be found across all layers of natural languages, ranging from the word level down to the phonological level and up to the syntactic one, and even beyond that. I will present examples of all these varieties and introduce three features according to which use-conditional items (UCIs) can be classified into five different types. The feature of functionality [± f ] concerns the question of whether a UCI needs an argument in order to express complete use-conditions. The feature of 2-dimensionality [±2d] tells us whether a UCI also expresses truth-conditional content, whereas the feature of resource-sensitivity [±rs], which is only applicable for [+f, −2d] expressions, accounts for the fact that some functional UCIs do not pass their argument back. The distribution of these three features leads to 5 kinds of UCIs, called isolated expletive UCIs [−f, −2d], isolated mixed UCIs [−f, +2d], functional expletive UCIs [+f, −2d, −rs], functional shunting UCIs [+f, −2d, +rs], and functional mixed UCIs [+f, +2d]. Finally, I discuss the properties that Potts (2007b) suggested as characteristic features of expressive UCIs and show that only a subset of them holds for UCIs in general.

Abstract e accent pattern known as verum focus is, as the term coined by Höhle () suggests, commo... more Abstract e accent pattern known as verum focus is, as the term coined by Höhle () suggests, commonly understood as a focus accent on a covert operator that resides in the C-domain of the clause and whose function is to mark a proposition as true. is widespread analysis, which I call the focus accent thesis or F, is however not explicitly spelled out.

Romero & Han () show that VERUM can also be realized by certain morphems (eg really) or by word o... more Romero & Han () show that VERUM can also be realized by certain morphems (eg really) or by word order variation like negation preposing. They provide a formal definition of VERUM as a conversational empistemic operator that is» used not to assert that the speaker is entirely certain about the truth of p, but to assert that the speaker is certain that p should be added to the Common Ground (CG).«(Romero & Han:).

Abstract In this paper we study the semantics of so-called verum focus from the point of view of ... more Abstract In this paper we study the semantics of so-called verum focus from the point of view of a multi-dimensional semantic model. As coined by Höhle (1992), verum focus is non-contrastive focus on the verb or a complementizer located in C in German, and it is a way of realizing the corresponding operator VERUM. In the small amount of previous literature, VERUM has been treated as a pure semantic operator.

Abstract The prepositional phrase (PP) in German has complex morpho-syntactic properties and ther... more Abstract The prepositional phrase (PP) in German has complex morpho-syntactic properties and therefore constitutes a challenge for children both in first and in second language acquisition. The prototypical German PP is headed by a preposition selecting for a determiner phrase (DP). Beside using a determiner and correctly marking the morpho-syntactic features inside the DP, the children have to learn that there is a prepositional element that is the head of the PP.

Abstract In his influential paper, François Récanati (2001) distinguishes two kinds of quotation,... more Abstract In his influential paper, François Récanati (2001) distinguishes two kinds of quotation, namely 'closed'and 'open', and develops a pragmatic view on open quotation. Facing some alleged arguments against his pragmatic view, he argues for a distinction between the compositionally articulated content of an utterance (c-content) and its intuitive truth-conditional content.

Abstract In his work on expressives and conventional implicatures, Potts (2005, 2007b) develops t... more Abstract In his work on expressives and conventional implicatures, Potts (2005, 2007b) develops the multidimensional logic LCI to formalize their main properties. In the type system of LCI, Potts implements two empirical claims.(i) There are no expressive modifiers, that is, expressions that have expressive type terms as their argument.(ii) There are no mixed expressives that contribute both descriptive and expressive content.

Although the German ethical dative mir is an inflected form of the personal pronoun ich, it has b... more Although the German ethical dative mir is an inflected form of the personal pronoun ich, it has been classified as a modal particle -an analysis which is supported by the syntactic and semantic properties of the ethical dative mir. Syntactically the ethical dative cannot be fronted or coordinated; neither can it receive main stress. Semantically it can be neither focused nor be in the scope of an operator, and it is not part of the propositional content of the sentence in which it occurs. In this paper, I provide an alternative account to explain its syntactic and semantic properties without treating a personal pronoun as a modal particle. Following the theory of conventional implicatures developed by Christopher Potts , the ethical dative can be analysed as an expression of type 〈t a , t c 〉 that yields a second proposition of type t c , which is independent from the proposition to which it is applied. This second proposition is defined by the conventionalized meaning of the ethical dative and expresses -though not propositionally articulated -that the speaker has some personal interest in the hearer's execution of the action requested. With this semantics for the ethical dative in mind, one can explain its syntactic properties without postulating a modal particle mir.

Fuel and Energy Abstracts, Jan 1, 2011

Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of q... more Most existing theories of quotation are restricted, sometimes implicitly, to certain aspects of quotation mark usage. In this paper, we have the somewhat ambitious aim of outlining an all-encompassing theory of quotation in (written) natural language. We first provide a naïve but neutral definition of quotation – quotation is everything between a pair of quotation marks – followed by a brief typology. Then, we develop an account of quotation which relies mainly on pragmatic mechanisms in order to explain what role quotation marks play in achieving communicative ends of writers. Quotation marks, we argue, are best understood as minimal pragmatic markers that block the stereotypical interpretation of the expression they enclose. They thereby indicate that some alternative interpretation ought to be inferred. We then address some worries about our view in order to clarify the aim and scope of our proposal as well as some deep-rooted philosophical preconceptions about quotation. Finally, we present the results of a small corpus study which we consider a confirmation of the predictions our account makes.