Acquiring the meaning of free relative clauses and plural definite descriptions

On the acquisition of maximality in free relative clauses and plural definite descriptions

Plural definite descriptions (e.g. the things on the plate) and free relative clauses (e.g. what is on the plate) have been argued to share the same semantic properties, despite their syntactic differences: both are non-quantificational expressions referring to the maximal element of a given set (e.g. the set of things on the plate). Experimental support to this semantic analysis is provided by...

Conditionals as Definite Descriptions ( A Referential Analysis ) 1 Philippe Schlenker

In Counterfactuals, David Lewis noticed that definite descriptions and conditionals display the same kind of non-monotonic behavior. We take his observation literally and suggest that if-clauses are, quite simply, definite descriptions of possible worlds (related ideas are developed in Bittner 2001). We depart from Lewis's analysis, however, in claiming that if-clauses, like Strawsonian definit...

The or That: Definite and Demonstrative Descriptions in Second Language Acquisition

Since Heubner's (1985) pioneering study, there have been many studies on (mis) use/ non-use of articles by L2 learners from article-less and article languages. The present study investigated how Persian L2 learners of English produce and interpret English definite descriptions and demonstrative descriptions. It was assumed that definite and demonstrative descriptions share the same central sema...

Acquiring maximality in free relatives and definite descriptions

Connecting the Exhaustivity of Clefts and the Homogeneity of Plural Definite Descriptions in Acquisition

Various views exist on the kind of meaning that the exhaustivity component of clefts corresponds to, and therefore on the status that clefts have when exhaustivity is violated. In particular, two semantic theories have recently been spelled out in some detail. According to Velleman et al. (2012), (1) carries the presupposition that it’s not the case that both the truck and something else are bl...