Lance Nathan: Papers

Determiner phrases have the ability to act as "concealed questions" (CQs), embedded questions in sentences like John knows the time (i.e., John knows what time it is). The fact that know and wonder differ in their ability to embed CQs partially motivated the hypothesis (Grimshaw 1979) that verbs select the possible syntactic categories of their complements independently of selection for the semantic type of their complements. Theories of CQ meaning generally follow Grimshaw in assuming them to denote questions, or else take them to denote individual concepts (intensions of individuals; Heim 1979, Romero 2005). This dissertation argue that the former assumption does not easily describe the semantically conditioned distribution of CQs, which can be embedded under only those verbs which allow propositional complements as well as question complements. The latter assumption, on the other hand, incorrectly predicts that any DP with an individual concept meaning can be used as a CQ.

We therefore need a new theory of CQ denotations, and this dissertation proposes that CQs denote propositions, so that the time in John knows the time actually denotes the proposition that the time is x, where x has the value of whatever the current time might be. In this theory, relatively little machinery is required to restrict the distribution of CQs, and it is possible to restrict propositional denotations to only those DPs which can act as CQs, using facts about relational nouns and the composition of relative clause modification.

On the interpretation of concealed questions. Dissertation, defended November 2005. Version filed in September 2006 in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Extended abstract in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.

The handout/paper from my WCCFL 24 talk. The handout has had a few minor typos corrected (an improperly selected preposition, and—oops!—an error in the title). This is a distillation of my generals paper, below.

"The interpetation of concealed questions", 2005. Handout in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. Paper available free at Cascadilla Press.

This paper examines new data concerning the Perfect aspect and its modification by since clauses. Past analyses of such adverbials have argued that the complement of since can be a clause expressing an event, but that the event must be unique (Iatridou 2003); and that the complement can be a Universal Perfect, but not an Existential Perfect (von Fintel and Iatridou, in progress). However, the sentence It has been four years since Henry has visited the MIT Museum is grammatical and felicitous, even though there are presumably many events of Henry visiting the MIT Museum and even though and even though the complement of the since clause is an E-Perfect and not a U-Perfect. Such data presents a challenge for previous conceptions of the Perfect. In this paper, I propose a new Amount Perfect meaning for the Perfect morpheme that accounts for temporal existentials (with unique events in the embedded clause) by relating them to simultaneous reading sentences (with Universal Perfects in the embedded clause).

"Temporal existentials and the Amount Perfect", 2004. Unpublished manuscript. In Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and gzipped postscript formats.

Syntactic and semantic selection of complements have long been considered idiosyncratic facts about verbs. For instance, among verbs that can take clausal questions as complements (John {knew/asked/cared/wondered} what time it was), lexical items vary as to whether, semantically, they accept clausal propositions (John {knew/*asked/cared/*wondered} that it was 3:00) and whether, syntactically, they accept question-denoting noun phrases, or "concealed questions" (John {knew/asked/*cared/*wondered} the time). In this paper I argue that the distribution of concealed questions is not arbitrary and therefore the ability to embed them does not need to be specified as part of the lexical entry of the verb.

"The interpretation and meaning of concealed questions", 2004. Unpublished manuscript (generals paper, semantics). In Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.

In Optimality Theory (OT), conjoining two or more constraints without a formal limitation on the power of conjunction allows the creation of typologically dubious constraints (one that, for instance, requires an onset to devoice only when its syllable contains a coda). This paper is an exploration of one way to formalize and thereby limit constraint conjunction, using Jason Eisner's (1997 et al.) theory of "Primitive Optimality Theory", OT limited by reference to a set of primitives. I demonstrate that an OTP view of conjunction blocks undesirable constraints while still allowing analyses of phenomena that have previously been explained with conjunction, such as German coda devoicing and Japanese rendaku.

"Constraint Conjunction and OTP, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ampersand", 2001. This version is my phonology generals paper, which appeared in a slightly edited form in MITWPL 42: Phonological Answers (and their Corresponding Questions) (2002), Czirmaz et al., eds. Available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and gzipped postscript formats.

Much attention has been paid to both negative polarity items (words that must appear in, roughly speaking, a negative context) and focus sensitive items (words that require, for their interpretation, part of the sentence to be focused). This paper is one of the first to examine "either", which requires both a negative context and contrastive focus. The interaction of the two requirements leads to scopal difficulty, as "either" must simultaneously scope higher than the focused item and lower than the NPI licensor, which is reconciled here by requiring the focus to be within the scope of the negation.

"Either: Negative Polarity meets Focus Sensitivity", 1999. Unpublished undergraduate honors thesis. This version is slightly revised (typos corrected, prose cleaned up). Available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and gzipped postscript formats. Interested readers are also referred to Hotze Rullmann, "Additive Particles and Polarity", 2003, Journal of Semantics 20(4): 329-401, which discusses these issues in more detail.

The question that remains unanswered throughout the OT literature, however, is the following. If these things are clearly "tables," why call them tableaux? I propose to answer this question within an OT framework, as follows.

To my alternating amusement and sorrow, this humorous reflection seems to be the piece of my writing that has generated the most interest. I occasionally get email from strangers about it; I've had graduate students at other schools recognize me as the author of it; I've seen it on the departmental whiteboard after having been discussed. As such, I'm posting it here, to make it easy to find, but I've also added a 2004 addendum and some author's notes.

Reflections on Optimality Theory, ca 1999, later additions 2004. HTML format.