Semantic Operators in Different Dimensions
Tatjana Scheffler
Supervisor: Maribel Romero
This thesis studies the interface of truth-conditional and
non-truth-conditional meaning by investigating constructions whose
meaning and use differ because their semantic contributions are
distributed differently over the semantic dimensions. The
constructions in question are certain clausal adjuncts and complements.
For clausal adjuncts, I argue that two words for 'because' in German
(weil and denn) contribute the same semantic operator
(causality), but on different semantic dimensions. While weil
operates in the assertion (or at issue) dimension, denn
contributes instead a side comment (or conventional
implicature). Consequently, the two words differ both in their range
of use as well as in their semantic behavior as part of larger
sentences. I point out the same empirical dichotomy for other adjuncts
such as regular and relevance conditionals, although-clauses,
and different kinds of adverbs. I show that for each of the
constructions similar semantic differences result because an operator
is contributed on the at issue dimension in one case, and as a
conventional implicature in the other.
In the realm of complement clauses I investigate complements of
attitude verbs. Of the large range of constructions that express the
semantic arguments of attitude verbs, I study two in this thesis:
slifting and embedded verb-second clauses. I show that these two
constructions again mirror the situation as with weil and
denn above: I propose that the two constructions contribute the
same semantic pieces, but distribute them differently over the
semantic dimensions of assertion and conventional implicature.
In multiple case studies, this thesis thus addresses some of the most
important questions in linguistic semantics: What are the semantic
pieces associated with a certain word or construction? How are these
semantic pieces distributed over the known dimensions of meaning? And
what effects does the individual distribution of meaning parts over
semantic dimensions have for the overall meaning, function, and
discourse effects of complex utterances?
The issue of the dimensionality of semantic entailments is not bound
to a particular language (group), and the phenomena I study are
generally cross-linguistically well-attested. For practical reasons,
though, the discussion in this dissertation concentrates mostly on
examples from German and English.
|