Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of (Non)Restrictivity

Stuttgart, Germany, 19-20 March 2012

Invited speakers

• Artemis Alexiadou (Universität Stuttgart)
• Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen (Universitetet i Oslo)
• Bart Geurts (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)
• Jutta Hartmann (Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen)
• Magdalena Kaufmann (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
• Christopher Piñón (Université de Lille 3)
• Paula Rubio Fernández (University College London)
• Carla Umbach (Universität Osnabrück/Universität Stuttgart)

Download the workshop material (handouts, slides, papers).

Workshop description

Restrictivity -- and its counterpart nonrestrictivity -- understood as properties of natural language modifiers such as relative clauses, adjectives, adverbials, PP- or nominal adjuncts, are fundamental concepts in linguistic theory.
The question whether the modifier of a head is restrictive or not depends on and has an influence on various linguistic levels. It is reflected in syntax (pre- vs. postnominal modifier, attachment) and prosody (accent placement, prosodic phrasing), and it is constrained by semantic and pragmatic factors (concept type, information status, information structure, entailment properties, projective meaning).
Despite the omnipresence of modification in natural discourse and various attempts at defining (non)restrictivity, there is still no consensual definition which unites all structural and meaning-related aspects, and which is robust enough to be used, for instance, in corpus annotation.
Among the semantic-pragmatic definitions of restrictivity we encounter a number of very heterogeneous proposals:

1. Set-theoretic / intersective definition: a modifier M is restrictive if the set of objects denoted by a modified head MH is properly contained in the denotation of the head H alone. M is nonrestrictive if the denotations of MH and H are equal.
2. Procedural / referential definition: a modifier M is restrictive if it contributes to identifying the referent of a complex term expression of the form 'Det MH'. It is nonrestrictive if it provides additional information about some already identified discourse referent.
3. Causal definition: a modifier M is restrictive in a predicative sentence of the form 'the MH is/are P', if the fact that M is satisfied contributes to explaining why the main predicate P is satisfied. Conversely, M is nonrestrictive if there is no causal relation between M and P.
4. Discourse-based definitions: there is little consensus as regards the discourse status of restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers. One particular source of confusion is the fact that nonrestrictive modifiers, while not part of the at-issue content of a sentence -- presupposed, backgrounded, conventionally implicated etc. -- can usually be rephrased in the form of a separate, informative assertion. A similar confusion prevails in the domain of restrictive modifiers. While intuitively they participate in the presupposition of, for instance, a complex definite, they may also represent discourse-new information. As often, however, we expect ambiguous discourse terminology to substantially complicate matters.

This list of definitions is not exhaustive. As a main goal of this workshop we will discuss the interrelation between these proposals. We will, furthermore, test their applicability to naturally occurring linguistic data.

Specific questions

• Does the notion of (non)restrictivity apply to modifiers in indefinites in the same way as in definites? Why is it often difficult to decide whether the modifier of an indefinite is restrictive or not?
• What difficulties arise when (non)restrictivity applies in the non-nominal domain, as with adverbials that modify events or states? What is common and different between (non)restrictive modifiers in the verbal and the nominal domain?
• Restricting the denotation of a noun intuitively only makes sense if its extension comprises more than one individual. Therefore, restriction creates a set of alternatives. Is there an intrinsic connection between restrictivity and focus?
• The above definitions have been stated in terms of language-independent meaning criteria. However, it is known that (non)restrictivity is also often correlated with structural (syntactic) differences. Is this generally the case or is it possible that sometimes restrictive and non-restrictive phrases share the same structure?
• What does information structure theory tell us about the prosody of (non-)restrictive phrases?
• What are the connections and the differences between the restrictivity of (in)definite expressions and the restrictivity of other quantifiers?
• It has been proposed that evaluative modifiers are less easily used as restrictive modifiers than nonevaluative ones. Do modifiers more generally display a lexical bias for either a restrictive or a nonrestrictive reading, and if yes, what are the properties responsible for those kinds of bias?

Registration

To register for this event, please send an email to restrictivity@ims.uni-stuttgart.de. Registration fee € 40 (students € 20), to be paid on site.

Call for papers

We invite anonymous abstracts for 30-minute presentations. Abstracts should be 1-2 pages in length, in PDF format, with a font size not smaller than 12pt and margins of 2.5 cm. Submission closed.

Important dates

• Submission deadline: 6 January 2012
• Notification: 27 January 2012
• Workshop: 19-20 March 2012