Laia Mayol | Pompeu Fabra University (original) (raw)

Journal papers by Laia Mayol

Language, 2013

The goal of this paper is to analyze the semantic contribution of evaluative adverbs (EAs) such a... more The goal of this paper is to analyze the semantic contribution of evaluative adverbs (EAs) such as unfortunately in several languages of the Romance family, namely French, Catalan and Spanish. Following Bonami and Godard (2008), we propose to analyze EAs as items that convey projective meaning in order to explain their peculiar semantic behavior (they cannot be directly denied, do not change the truth-conditions of the proposition they evaluate, and are not factive) and their unacceptability in negative assertions. Unlike what has been claimed for many other languages, French allows EAs in questions French allows EAs in questions, and we show that Catalan and Spanish, too, as long as some conditions are met. We propose an account that derives their interpretation in both assertions and questions: integrated French EAs take the proposition to their right and if they appear in a wh-question, their interpretation is similar to that of unconditionals. In contrast, non-integrated EAs in Catalan and Spanish have scope over a set of propositions, and are only acceptable in questions if the speaker is biased towards one of the propositions in the set denoted by the question. The acceptability of EAs in such questions, rejected by previous literature, is confirmed by an experimental study. María, María, por desgracia? Spanish unfortunately?

Journal of Pragmatics, 2013

Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicature in general, and sca... more Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicature in general, and scalar implicatures in particular. Despite this fact, cancelability itself is a phenomenon rarely looked at. This paper presents an account of when the cancellation of a scalar implicature is an acceptable discourse move and provides experimental evidence to support our proposal.

International Review of Pragmatics, 2013

While our understanding has grown of the discourse role of rightdislocation (RD), there exists a ... more While our understanding has grown of the discourse role of rightdislocation (RD), there exists a class of RD (continuing RD) that have proven impervious to any principled analysis, for the role of the dislocate is (apparently) null, given that its referent appears immediately before the RD and, thus, simple pronominalisation should suffice to retrieve it. This paper aims to account for the pragmatic felicity conditions of continuing RD by looking at the role of polarity, an overlooked factor in previous work. Particularly, we will show that a significant amount of continuing RD involve the contradiction of part of the interlocutor's common knowledge. Moreover, we will argue that RD * We are very grateful for comments to an anonymous reviewer and to the audience at the Seminar

Spanish in Context, 2012

This paper examines the variation between null and overt subject pronouns found in Romance null s... more This paper examines the variation between null and overt subject pronouns found in Romance null subject languages (NSL). While it is well known that several factors regulate the distribution between these two forms, it is also well known that not all null subject languages behave the same. The contexts in which null and overt subject pronouns are required or forbidden vary across dialects, as well as their rates. This paper examines such quantitative and qualitative differences and proposes two mechanisms to explain them.

Overt subject pronouns in Romance null subject languages are mandatory in order to express contra... more Overt subject pronouns in Romance null subject languages are mandatory in order to express contrast, while null subject pronouns are generally prohibited in these contexts. However, most of the literature remains vague of what is meant by contrast. This paper argues that non-focal Romance contrastive pronouns are Contrastive Topics, which trigger topic alternatives and it is implicated that the truth of the alternatives is not known to the speaker (Hara and van Rooij ). This implicature gives rise to an 'uncertainty contrast', which can be strengthened into an 'exhaustive contrast', in certain circumstances. The pairing between forms and meanings is derived using the mathematical framework of game theory.

Journal of pragmatics, Jan 1, 2010

This paper investigates the variation between null and overt subject pronouns in Catalan, a null ... more This paper investigates the variation between null and overt subject pronouns in Catalan, a null subject language. We account for this variation in game-theoretical terms: that is, we analyze the distribution of both overt and null pronouns as a result of the strategic interaction between participants in a communicative exchange.

Catalan journal of linguistics, Jan 1, 2008

Languages in Contrast, Jan 1, 2007

Erk et al, Jan 1, 2005

This paper describes an experiment devised to group Catalan verbs according to their syntactic be... more This paper describes an experiment devised to group Catalan verbs according to their syntactic behavior. Our goal is to acquire a small number of basic classes with a high level of accuracy, from relatively knowledge-poor resources. This information, expensive and slow to compile by hand, is useful for any NLP task requiring specific lexical information.

Book chapters by Laia Mayol

Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory, 2015

This paper provides a description and an analysis of what I call "conditionally interpreted decla... more This paper provides a description and an analysis of what I call "conditionally interpreted declaratives" in Spanish: a coordination of two declarative clauses which receive a conditional interpretation. Conditionally interpreted declaratives in Spanish may even receive a counterfactual reading, which is something very rare cross-linguistically. I propose that such conditionally interpreted declaratives contain a left-subordinating conjunction 'and' , which (i) conveys a causal modal, and (ii) turns the first conjunct into the restrictor of the modal and the second one into the scope. The fact that the first conjunct acts as a restrictor explains its peculiar prosody, which acts as a strong cue towards the relevant interpretation. Finally, the counterfactual interpretation is a pragmatic effect (i.e. it is defeasible) which is obtained when it is common ground that the first conjunct does not hold.

Conference Proceedings and Others by Laia Mayol

This paper examines the semantic properties of evaluative adverbs, such as unfortunately, in ques... more This paper examines the semantic properties of evaluative adverbs, such as unfortunately, in question environments in French. We take Bonami and Godard's (2008) analysis for malheureusement ('unfortunately') in declarative sentences, where such propositional adverbs are analyzed as ancillary commitments, and extend it to a broader array of data, including polar and whquestions. In a nutshell, we argue that malheureusement can take as input a set of propositions, which triggers an indifference interpretation of the sort that characterizes unconditional sentences. We also show that evaluatives may take a proposition as argument when they occur in polar questions, the only restriction occurring in negative polar questions, where biases are decisive in making the sentence acceptable.

passage.inria.fr

This paper addresses the use in dialogue of the Catalan discourse connective doncs (and Spanish p... more This paper addresses the use in dialogue of the Catalan discourse connective doncs (and Spanish pues). We propose that doncs has two different uses (it introduces a reply or it participates in the rhetoric relations of consequence/solutionhood), but we also show that they share a core property, namely the acknowledgment of a previous assertion that does not resolve the current Question Under Discussion.

University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in …, Jan 1, 2010

Unpublished dissertation proposal. University of …, Jan 1, 2008

Twelfth ESSLLI Student Session, Jan 1, 2007

The ESSLLI Student Session has been part of the annual European Summer School in Logic, Language ... more The ESSLLI Student Session has been part of the annual European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information ever since it was held for the first time in 1996. The Student Session is a unique interdisciplinary forum for student researchers from around the world to present their work in progress for a wide audience in a friendly environment.

La dislocació a la dreta en català i anglès. Senior …, Jan 1, 2002

TIC, Mar 1, 2004

El proyecto Preparación Automatizada de Documentos, PrADo, se inició a partir del interés de los ... more El proyecto Preparación Automatizada de Documentos, PrADo, se inició a partir del interés de los dos grupos investigadores, de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra y de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, en el procesamiento de textos reales no restringidos y en el establecimiento de métodos de procesamiento estables y eficientes para las lenguas habladas en Cataluña, el catalán y el castellano. Ver en el apéndice C la lista de investigadores de cada grupo.