The Sequence of Tense in English Revisited

Mean-Young Song 한국영어학학회 2010 영어학연구 Vol.16 No.3

The stative predicate in a sequence-of-tense (SOT) sentence like a past-under-past sentence behaves differently from that in a SOT sentence like a past/present-under-present sentence. The former is interpreted to be ambiguous between a shifted reading and a simultaneous reading, while this is not the case with the latter. This paper is mainly concerned with addressing a semantic analysis of the contrast between the two types of entences. Pointing out some problems with the previous semantic treatments of SOT sentences, this paper proposes that tense be classified as an indexical tense evaluated relative to the utterance time and a vacuous tense which has no meaning. The indexical tense is licensed at LF just in case it is governed by the complement C with [+coincide], whereas the vacuous tense is licensed just in case it is governed by the embedded C with [-coincide]. After observing stative predicates are involved in establishing either a precedence relation or an overlap relation, this paper aruges that the property is active when the stative predicate combines with the vacuous tense, but it remains inactive when it combines with the indexical tense. This may assist in understanding why both a shifted reading and a simultaneous reading are available in a past-under-past sentence with a stative predicate in it, and why this is not the case with a past/present-under-present sentence with a stative predicate.

The Semantics of Epistemic Modality

Mean-young Song 한국영어학학회 2009 영어학연구 Vol.- No.28

According to the standard semantics of epistemic modals, including Kratzer (1979 and 1991), epistemic modals are dealt with on the basis of entailment by what is known. The problem with the treatment is that the entailment from what is known is not appropriate for the semantics of epistemic modals in some cases. Another problem to note in the treatment of epistemic modality is that must p, where p is a prejacent, does not necessarily mean that p. To remedy this, this paper argues that evidentiality must be incorporated into the semantics of epistemic modals, which implies that epistemic modals signal that a certain conclusion is reached from a body of evidence. Based on this, the present study argues that the semantics of epistemic modals consists of an evidential component which signals a source of information and an epistemic component which reflects the speaker’s assessment of the source of information. This may assist in understanding the speaker’s choice of epistemic modals in an utterance and the difference in strength between epistemically modalized sentences and unmodalized ones.

Choice Functions and Transparency in Intensional Transitive Verbs

Mean-Young Song 한국영어학학회 2004 영어학연구 Vol.- No.18

This paper criticizes the scope analysis, or the quantifying-into analysis, adopted by classical formal semanticists like Montague (1973) for having difficulty With the treatment of the de re attitude induced by intensional transitive verbs like seek In order to remedy this, I argue in this paper that the acquaintance relation proposed by Lewis (1979) should be incorporated in the semantic treatment of the intensional transitive verbs, Just as in the semantics of propositional attitude verbs like believe Departing from the Rusellian classical treatment of the definite description, this paper attempts to present the semantics of the definite description by presuppositions and incorporating choice functions

The Syntax and Semantics of the Contrastive and Exhaustive Focus in Korean

Song, Mean Young 대한언어학회 2001 언어학 Vol.9 No.2

In Korean. the NPs marked by the topic marker -nun and the NPs marked by the nominative case marker kal -i can Produce a contrastive focus reading and an ev3rausHve focus madLng respectLveLy. TL, Paper Ls an attempt to Lnvestb t. a syntactic and a semende accwnt such Liimb of foci, When Lt comes to the syntactic aspect cf the c~nt[ Live focus readLII I argue Ln ails paper that the tope marker allowing a catrastLve focus madng Ls base-generated Lnstde VP. whereas the tope madsr ILowing a neutm.L madng Ls base-genem.ted outsLcb VP. In case d the esdiaustLve focus reading m the other herd, the nominative case marker Lndrcing n eviauslive focus madng is based- aerated VP-,internally wheres the nominative case madsr Lndudng a neutral readng is based-ernerated VP-internally, Thds paper also eapores

Semantic Resolution to the Copy Raising Verb Puzzle

Mean-Young Song 한국영어학학회 2019 영어학연구 Vol.25 No.1

This paper aims at investigating the semantics of English copy raising constructions (CRCs) in which the matrix subject is copied onto the embedded subject. In their recent work, Asudeh and Toivonen (2012) argue that unlike canonical raising, copy raising is involved in the P-source, a semantic role assigned to the matrix subject, due to the fact that copy raising is used only in the situation where the speaker has a perception source of the matrix subject. However, this paper argues against them since CRCs can be licensed even when the P-source is absent. It also argues that they are involved in evidentiality, because they are licensed in the context where the speaker has evidence. To incorporate the evidential flavor into the semantics of copy raising verbs, this paper proposes a modal-based alternative analysis.

Korean temporal (Modal) Marker-keyss as An Evidential Marker

Mean Young Song 현대문법학회 2008 현대문법연구 Vol.52 No.-

On the Gradability of Hypothetical Conditionals

Mean-Young Song 한국영어학학회 2021 영어학연구 Vol.27 No.1

This paper explores a semantic account of the gradability of conditionals, a phenomenon in which the degree of probability varies according to the types of conditionals such as present indicative conditionals (PICs), past subjunctive conditionals (PSCs), and past perfect subjunctive counterfactual conditionals (PSCCs). Observing that the degree of probability decreases from PICs to PSCs to PSCCs, this paper argues that two aspects – i.e. tense/aspect and different ordering sources – should be considered for the semantic analysis of the gradability phenomenon. Tense and aspect are what makes PICs semantically distinctive from PSCs and PSCCs. The past tense in PSCs and the pluperfect in PSCCs are involved in the exclusion feature. As a result, the likelihood of PICs is higher than that of PICs and PSCCs. The difference ordering sources are what makes a semantic distinction between PSCs from PSCCs. PSCCs presuppose that the antecedent is false, while PSCs do not. Setting up the different ordering sources based on the presupposition assists us in understanding why PSCs are more likely than PSCCs.

Epistemic Necessity Modality and Presupposition

Mean-Young Song 한국영어학학회 2011 영어학연구 Vol.17 No.3

Necessity modality is semantically characterized by the fact that it is involved in universal quantification. This paper points out some problems that might arise from this: weak necessity modals do not respect the semantics of necessity modals. This is because according to the traditional treatment of the modal, the set of worlds in which the strong necessity modal is assessed is predicted to include the set of worlds in which the weak modal is assessed. To remedy this, this paper argues that strong and weak necessity modals have their own set of worlds which are determined by the respective presupposition triggered by them, and universally quantify over each of their own possible worlds.

Semantic Analogy between Tense and Indefinite NPs

Mean-Young Song 한국영어학학회 2013 영어학연구 Vol.19 No.3

This paper argues that there is an analogy between the interpretation of indefinite NPs and that of tense because just as indefinites are interpreted referentially or non-referentially, so is tense, and that tense can be semantically treated in much the same way the indefinite NPs are. The crucial factor in determining whether an indefinite NP receives a referential and a non-referential reading is the availability of presupposition that there is an individual the speaker has in her mind at the utterance time who is picked out by that indefinite NP. In the same manner, tense can be interpreted referentially or non-referentially, depending on the availability of the presupposition that the speaker has a certain or specific interval in her mind that is picked out by that tense. By incorporating presupposition into the semantics of tense, this paper clearly demonstrates how the ambiguity of tense is resolved.

The Semantics of Counterfactual wish

Mean-Young Song 서울대학교 언어교육원 2016 語學硏究 Vol.52 No.2

This paper aims at exploring the semantic analysis of counterfactual attitudes like wish in English. Counterfactual wish is rarely discussed in the literature because it is not a main topic in the semantics of propositional attitudes, nor does the standard semantic account of the de re attitudes suffice to provide the semantics of counterfactual wish since it poses a problem when dealing with counterfactual wish on the grounds that the property the attitude holder ascribes to the res cannot be true of the res in the actual world. There are two significant characteristics of counterfactual wish we should consider for its semantic analysis; one is that it is involved in the presupposition that the proposition expressed by the complement clause does not hold in the actual world, and the other is that it is interpreted differently, depending on whether the past tense or the past perfect occurs in the complement clauses. On the basis of them, this paper proposes an alternative approach to its semantics in which the presupposition is incorporated in the ordering source, and the embedded past tense is taken to be modal preterit, along the lines of Palmer (1986) and Schulz (2014). The presupposition plays the role of constituting a set of bouletic accessible worlds that are not compatible with the attitude holder’s beliefs. The modal preterit, on the other hand, functions to exclude the actual world and the speech time from the domain of quantification for counterfactual wish, and the perfect primarily serves to shift an interval backward from the speech time. In this way, we can capture the difference in semantic interpretation by making the possible worlds quantified over by wish-counterfactuals with the past tense different from those quantified over by wish-counterfactuals with the past perfect.