Structure-Sensitivity in Actuality: Notes from a Class of Preference Expressions

University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 17 Issue 1 Proceedings of the 34th Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium 1-1-2011 Structure-Sensitivity in Actuality: Notes from a Class of Preference Expressions Remus Gergel University of Tübingen, This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol17/iss1/14 For more information, please contact . Article 14 Structure-Sensitivity in Actuality: Notes from a Class of Preference Expressions Abstract The paper deals with the development of certain preference expressions (in particular 'rather') against the background of language change. Following results from narrow syntax, a diachronic reanalysis at the level of Logical Form is proposed. Synchronically, certain actuality entailments (Bhatt 1999/2006) are observed and a structural analysis capitalizing on Hacquard (2009) is proposed. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/ vol17/iss1/14 Structure-Sensitivity in Actuality: Notes from a Class of Preference Expressions Remus Gergel* 1 Introduction An important insight gained in recent years (see e.g., von Fintel 1995 and especially Eckardt 2006) is that, in many crucial cases, semantic change in a word goes together with a wholesale reorganization of meaning in its linguistic environment. This is, of course, part and parcel of the issue of compositional semantics, Frege’s conjecture, applied to language change. Part of ongoing work, the present paper addresses this perspective by considering certain aspects of rather expressions together with the mapping between the interpretable structures involved in the change and the effects they produce. We focus on the preference reading of rather constructions. Following Gergel (2009a), we apply a Heim/Villalta semantics (cf. Villalta 2006) to such constructions and additionally deal with actuality effects (AEs) that obtain in them. The article proceeds as follows. Following earlier work, Section 2 introduces the basic data for modern and earlier stages of rather. In Section 3, we present our proposal of modeling the change theoretically. The key idea is that of diachronic reanalysis at LF, a concept that we put forward by relying on the findings of semantic change conducted in the literature so far, but in conjunction with configurational properties of change. To this end we capitalize on (structurefocused) syntactic diachronic research (cf. Axel 2007, van Gelderen 2008, Kroch 2001, Roberts and Roussou 2003, among many others) alongside the pertinent semantic literature. In Section 4, we refine the analysis of the change undergone by rather in several respects. Our main focus will be on the AEs (Bhatt 1999/2006) that obtain with bare rather constructions in post-reanalysis grammars. In Section 5, we extend the proposal to European Portuguese and Romanian. Given that the most explicit configurational theory of AEs with other types of modality (Hacquard 2009 and related work) has been developed on the basis of the Romance tempo-aspectual system, we show that when expressions of preference with similar actuality effects as rather are grammaticalizing, they are sensitive to the same imperfective/perfective distinctions predicted from other areas of modality within the Romance system. 2 Essential Characteristics of Rather 2.1 Rather in (Standard) Modern English According to the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL; i.e., Huddleston and Pullum 2002), rather is a less central governor of scalar inequality with four main uses: (1) She would rather live in danger than die of loneliness and boredom. (so-called idiom would rather) (2) Joe went to jail rather than pay the fine. (with bare infinitive, preference reading) (3) Care rather than skill is all you need. (contrastive link) (4) These people are more likely to be referred to courts rather than to aid panels. (pleonastic) From the four uses, we will focus here on the most clearly modal types of rather, i.e., the preference reading and the would+rather construction. This does not exhaust the ModE morphosyntax (cf. e.g., the non-standard verb rather; Juge 2002) or the range of meanings of rather expressions, but yields a first orientation. Two descriptive addenda: (i) the modality conveyed in the * I am grateful to the audiences in Philadelphia (UPenn, PLC 34), Barcelona (UPF, CGG 20), Frankfurt a. M. (Graduiertenkolleg Satzarten), and Tübingen, where material related to this paper has been presented. Special thanks to Sigrid Beck, Rajesh Bhatt, João Costa, Caroline Féry, Daniel Gutzmann, Stefan Hofstetter, Vera Hohaus, Sveta Krasikova, Tony Kroch, Josep Quer, Magda Roguska, Augustin Speyer, Satoshi Tomioka and Xavier Villalba for their comments. All remaining errors are my own responsibility. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 17.1, 2011 116 REMUS GERGEL bare-infinitive pattern is frequently bouletic, comparing preferences on a scale, but other backgrounds for the alternative propositions are attested as well (cf. e.g., Gergel 2009a); (ii) the -ing form is an alternative to the bare-infinitive type of rather in many cases. Let us note a few additional characteristics of the patterns in (1-4) before considering earlier English. First, the pleonastic use is easiest to distinguish. The introducer of the comparative XP, rather than, can be substituted by than alone (e.g., (4)), though the opposite is not generally true; cf. the run-of-the-mill comparative Lisa is taller than Bart. (Some notion of distance between comparative and rather than is minimally necessary.) Second, from the perspective of grammaticalization the pleonastic use is interesting to the extent that claims about bleaching have substance. An alternative to the term pleonastic would be, however, to say that in examples like (4), rather is an optional marker of modal harmony (e.g., with likely there). Third, the so-called contrastive-link reading may belong to a potentially larger group of metalinguistic comparatives. It is conceivable that they involve some type of modality as well (cf. e.g., Giannakidou and Stavrou 2008 for Greek). Metalinguistic comparatives (called denial of assumption, DOA, in some of the literature; cf. Thompson 1972) can be distinguished morphosyntactically in English (when they are overtly clausal) from the modal-in-a-narrow-sense rather than structures (RTS) on which the focus lies here. RTSs involve the non-finite form of the main verb, while DOAs have the finite form: (5) Harry walked to work rather than drive. (RTS with a preference reading) (6) Harry walked to work rather than drove. (DOA) According to Dieterich and Napoli (1982), there is a further correlation between expletives and the two types of rather. Notice that the preference RTS naturally rules out a non-referential expletive it subject (given that such a subject cannot be interpreted to have a preference): (7) *It snowed rather (...truncated)