Focus-sensitivity and homogeneity in attitude predicates
Jad Wehbe, Enrico Flor
June 2022
 

We account for the homogeneity effects arising with focus sensitive attitude predicates, deriving an unnoticed asymmetry between question- and proposition-embedding surprise with respect to homogeneity. In particular, we observe that question-embedding surprise (unlike question-embedding know), lacks a homogeneity effect that is present when surprise embeds a proposition that contains a definite plural. Our proposal builds on a view of homogeneity as truth-value trivalence (Kriz 2015 a.o.) and a focus-sensitive meaning for surprise modeled after Romero (2015), presenting a borne out prediction made by these accounts.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/006676
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: NELS proceedings
keywords: homogeneity, focus-sensitivity, attitude predicates, surprise, question-embedding, semantics
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