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JOURNAL OF SEMANTICS Volume 13 Number 3
CONTENTS jOHAN VAN DER AUWERA
Modality: The Three-layered Scalar Square
I
8I
SHALOM LAPPIN
Generalized Quantifiers, Exception Phrases, and Logicality
197
HENRiihTE DE SwART
Meaning and Use of not . . . until
22 I
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Linguistic Highly rnv-,-,..., tur tiS tuownrd �t'llencr rn qu.Uuy ofschobn!Up, ungomtic '"'�"'"' le.ld< tht il�ld In �.uch "" currm• topiCS tn Ungt.mttc throry bsut• ··�· �Ill.·, u l .... ,. you uuuru'O'J of nt>v. theort!ucal Jl)� ot Vola' As.tnuS.hon m l'c•h�h Jrr:v Rubarh Mort! •>n �Jn.llf$1> lhpotheses ,\Yrl B.tltJII Jrtd I'Jul M PosJAI \'P-lnlt'nW StrUCiun' anJ Objrn 5hin sn
k\'Llndic Chrt1 Colltns a•� llo>sb Every/no A except n As C. (56) Every/no student except five (students) sings. The number of students who sing is equal to the number of students who dance. => Every/no student except five (students) dances. Comparable inferences do not go through with non-logical exception NPs, like
every student exceptfive law students.
(57) Every/no student except five law students sings. The number of students who sing is equal to the number of students who dance. '*> Every/no student except five law students dances. It follows that the GQs denoted by exception phrase NPs cannot be uniformly modelled by a proof-theoretic system which satisfies the condition
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Recently, several proof-theoretic systems have been proposed for characteriz ing the meanings of natural language expressions through deductive procedures rather than model-theoretic interpretation. 1 5 In general, these sys tems specify the contribution of an expression to the meaning of a sentence in terms of the set of inferences which the expression licenses. Van Benthem ( I 99 I ) suggests that a proof-theoretic account ofgeneralized quantifiers should satisfy the general constraint that the notion of entailment which it specifies is invariant under permutation in the sense defined in (54).
2 1 6 Generalized Quantifiers, Exception Phrases, and Logicality
of invariance under permutation. To the extent, then, that a proof-theoretic representation of GQs is a logical system that satisfies (54), it will not be able to accommodate the full set of quantified NPs which occur in natural language. Exception phrase NPs pose a serious challenge for a program that seeks to develop a proof-theoretic characterization of the full range of generalized quantifiers corresponding to quantified NPs in natural language.
5 CONCLUSION
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the SOAS Workshop on Deduction in Natural Language, SOAS, University of London in March 1 994, the Semantics Seminar at the Conference of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, Middlesex University, September 1 994, and the Bar-Ilan Symposium on the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence, Bar Ilan University, June 1 99 5 · I am grateful to the participants of these conferences for their comments. I would like to thank Ruth Kempson, Friederike Moltmann, and rwo anonymous
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I have considered the debate between the Fregeau and generalized quantifier approaches to NPs in light of the properties of exception phrase NPs, which constitute a subset of the set of quantified NPs. On May's version of the Fregeau view, logicality is the basis for partitioning NPs into two distinct syntactic cate gories and associated semantic types. At the level of syntactic structure which determines the category-type correspondence, logical NPs are represented as operator-variable chains while non-logical NPs appear in situ in argument position. On the GQ view, logical and non-logical NPs are elements of a unified syntactic category and correspond to a single semantic type. The dis tinction between logical and non-logical NPs (as well as the difference between quantified and non-quantified NPs) is orthogonal to this category and its asso ciated type. I have examined four recent analyses of exception phrase NPs and found significant difficulties with each of them. The alternative account proposed here avoids these difficulties and captures the major semantic properties of exception NPs. On this account, exception NPs are heterogeneous with respect to logicality. However, both logical and non-logical elements of this subset exhibit the scope and semantic binding properties of other quantified NPs. May and Higginbotham invoke these properties as an important part of their case for representing quantified NPs as operator-variable structures at LF. The fact that exception phrase NPs are non-uniform for logicality but behave like other quantified NPs in connection with scope and semantic binding provides motivation for the generalized quantifier approach to the syntax and semantics ofNPs in natural language.
Shalom Lappin 2 1 7 referees for helpful criticism and advice. Finally, I am particularly grateful to Jaap van der Does for extensive comments on a previous draft of this paper. Received: 07.I 1 .9 5 Revised version received: 03.05.96
SHALOM LAPPIN
School ofOriental and African Studies University ofLondon Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square London WC1H OX6 UK e-mail:
[email protected].
N O TES
• . •
• • •
• • •
M', then detM (A1,
. . ., Ak)·
• • •
, Ak) - detM. (A1,
I will follow B&C, K&S, and Wester stahl in assuming that all natural language determiners denote conservative func tions. I will also adopt Westersdhl's suggestion that natural language deter miner functions satisfy the Extension condition. Given these assumptions, the distinction between logical and non-logi cal natural language determiner functions depends upon the property of invariance under isomorphic structures defined on E. 6 See Hoeksema ( I99 I ), von Fintel (I99 3), and Moltmann (I99 3, I995) for discus sions of these properties. Moltmann ( I 99 5) provides detailed criticisms of the theories proposed in Hoeksema (198 7, I989), and von Fintel (I99 3)· 7 I am grateful to Jaap van der Does for suggesting this possibility to me. 8 Von Fintel considers two possibilities for the syntactic category and semantic type of exception phrases. The first is that they are modifiers of determiners. The second is that they are functions from common nouns to higher type common nouns, with the latter being functions from determiners to NPs. He does not decide between these alternatives. I will set this issue aside, as it is not directly relevant to the problems which attach to his pro-
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1 See Chomsky ( 1 9 8 1 , 1986, 1992 and 1 994) for this model of syntax. 2 See May (I985, I989) for a discussion of the relation between the syntactic scope of an NP at LF and the set of possible scope interpretations which its syntactic scope allows. See May ( I 99 I, pp. 3 5 I -5) for discussion of the Logicality Thesis view of LF. 4 See, for example, Montague (I974), Barwise & Cooper ( I 98 I ) (B&C), Cooper ( I 98 3), Keenan & Stavi (K&S), and van Benthem (I 986) for different versions of the GQ approach. May and Higgin botham provide independent syntactic and semantic arguments for incorporat ing QR and the level of representation which it defines into the grammar. See Lappin (I99 I ) for a critical discussion of some of these arguments and a defence of the GQ account of the semantics of NPs. See May ( I 99 I ) for a response to some of the points raised in Lappin (I 99 I ). These conditions are specified for k-place (I � k) determiner functions in (i) and (ii), respectively (see B&C, van Benthem, Keenan & Moss (I985), and K&S for discussions of conservativity). (i) A k-place determiner function det is conservative iff B E det (A1, , Ak) (A1 u . . . u Ak) n B E det (A1, , AJ. (ii) A k-place determiner function det satisfies Extension iff for any two models M and M ', if A1, Ak � M �
2 I 8 Generalized Quantifiers, Exception Phrases, and Logicaliry posed semantics for exception phrase NPs. 9 The notion of conservativiry can be extended from determiners to NPs by specifying that �NPII is conservative for the set A iff for every X E IINPII, X '"' A E IINPII. I O This definition is intended to apply to NPs formed by applying an exception phrase to a quantified NP interpreted as a retricted unary quantifier. Moltmann generalizes the definition to cases m which exception phrases apply to resumptive quantifiers, as in (i).
I d iscuss cases of this kind in section 3.2. I I Moltmann (p.c.) points out that (i)b IS better than (i)a.
(i) a. ?all 100 students except John b. *all three students exceptJohn
A possible explanation for the contrast between these cases is that with lower cardinaliry values for n, all n functions as a determiner, while for higher values n is treated as a separate appositive element which is not part of the determiner. On the latter reading, all n N ' is interpreted as all N', and, incidentally, there are 1 oo N ' s. I 2 Moltmann (p.c.) suggests that the NPs in (22a) could be ruled out by a pragmatic constraint which prevents the application of exception phrases to NPs whose deter miners are both universal and impose a cardinaliry condition on their N ' sets. Even if such a constraint can be motivated, the result would be an
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(i) a. Every boy danced with every girl, except John and Mary. b. No student talked to any professor except two law students to one computer science professor.
undesirable distinction between semanti cally ill-formed exception NPs, like those in {I 3), and pragmatically excluded cases, like those in (22a). In fact, the NPs in both sets of examples seem to be unacceptable to the same degree. If the NPs in (22a) violate a pragmatic but nor a semantic constraint, it should be possible to con struct possible situations in which the constraint is overridden or does not hold. However, the NPs in (22a), like those in {I 3). would seem to be unacceptable in all possible situations. I 3 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the problem of null restriction sets for NP arguments of exception phrases. 1 4 See May ( I 989) for a discussion of resumptive quantifiers. See Keenan (I987) and van Benthem ( I 989) for discussions of polyadic quantifiers. I s See, for example, Kempson & Gabbay {I99 3). and Kempson (I996) for outlines of a general framework for interpretation by natural deduction. Van Lambalgen (I99 I) suggests rules of natural deduction for several unary generalized quantifiers. Van Benthem {I99 I ) discusses some of the issues involved in developing a proof theoretic account of generalized quantifi ers. Dalrymple et a/. ( I 994) presents a set of deductive procedures for representing quantifier scope relations within the framework ofLFG. The system makes use of Girard's ( I 987) linear logic. However, unlike van Lambalgen's rules, it does not attempt to express the semantic content of quantified NPs in proof-theoretic terms. Instead it offers a deductive alternative to interpretation through compositional function-argument appli cation in a higher-order rype system.
Shalom Lappin 2 1 9
RE F E RE N C E S
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MA.
Chomsky, N. (1994), Bare Phrase Structure, MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, MIT, Cambridge, MA Cooper, R. ( 1 98 3), Quantification and Syntactic Theory, Reidel, Dordrechr. Dalrymple, M., Lamping, J., Pereira, F. and Saraswat, V. ( 1994), 'A deductive account of quantification in LFG', MS Xerox Pare, Palo Alto, CA and AT&T Bell Labora tories. Murray Hill, NJ. von Finrel, K. ( 1993), 'Exceptive construc tions', Natural Language Semantics, I, 12348. Girard, Y.-Y. ( 1987), 'Linear logic', Theoretical Computer Science, 45, 1 - 1 02. Higginbotham, J. (1985), 'On semantics', Linguistic Inquiry, I 6, 547-94. Higginbotham, J. & May, R ( 198 1), 'Ques tions, quantifiers, and crossing', The Linguistic Review, I, 4 1 -79. Hoeksema,]. ( 1 987), 'The logic of exception', .
Proceedings ofESCOL, 4,
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Hoeksema,]. ( 1989), 'The semantics of excep tion phrases', in L. Torenvliet & M.
Srokhof(eds), Proceedings ofSeventh A mster dam Colloquium, ITLI, Amsterdam. Hoeksema,]. ( 1 99 1), 'The semantics ofexcep tion phrases', in J. van der Does & J. van Eijk (eds), Generalized Quantifiers and Applica tions, Dutch Nerwork for Language, Logic, and Information, Amsterdam, 245-74. Keenan, E. ( 1987). ;Unreducible n-ary quan tifiers in natural language', in P. Garden fors (ed.), Generalized Quantifiers: Linguistic and Logical Approaches, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1 09-50. Keenan, E. and L. Moss ( 1 995), 'Generalized Quantifiers and the Expressive Power of Natural Language' in J. van Bentham and A. ter Meulen (eds.), Generalized Quantifiers in Natural Language, Foris, Dordrecht, 73-124. Keenan, E. & Stavi, J. ( 1986), 'A semantic characterization of natural language determiners', Linguistics and Philosophy, 9, 253-326. Kempson, R. (1996), 'Semantics. pragmatics, and natural language interpretation', in S. Lappin (ed.), The Handbook ofContemporary Semantic Theory, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 561-98. Kempson, R. & Gabbay, D. ( 1993), 'How we understand sentences. And fragments too?' in M. Cobb (ed.), SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics, J, 259-336. van Lambalgen, M. (199 1), 'Natural deduc tion for generalized quantifiers', in J. van der Does & J. van Eijk (eds), Generalized Quantifiers and Applications, Dutch Network for Language, Logic, and Infor mation, Amsterdam, 143-54. Lappin, S. (199 1 ), 'Concepts oflogical form in linguistics and philosophy', in A. Kasher (ed.), The Clwmskyan Turn, Blackwell, Oxford, 30D- 3 J. Lindstrom, P. ( 1966), 'First order predicate logic with generalized quantifiers', Theoria, 32, 1 72-85. May, R ( 1 985), Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
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Barwise, J. & Cooper, R ( 1 981), 'Generalized quantifiers and natural language, Linguis tics and Philosophy, 4, 159-2 19. van Benthem, J. (1986), Essays in Logical Semantics, Reidel, Dordrecht. van Benthem, J. ( 1 989), 'Polyadic quantifica tion', Linguistics and Philosophy, 12, 43764. van Benthem, ]. ( 199 1), 'Generalized quanti fiers and generalized inference', in J. van der Does & J. van Eijk (eds), Generalized Quantifiers and Applications, Dutch Nerwork for Language, Logic, and Infor mation, Amsterdam, 1- 1 3· Chomsky, N. (1981), Lectures on Government and Binding , Foris, Dordrecht. Chomsky, N. (1986), Barriers, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Chomsky, N. ( 1 992), A Minimalist Programfor Linguistic Theory, MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, No. 1 , MIT, Cambridge,
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( I 989), 'Interpreting logical form', 12, 387-4 3 5. May, R. (I 99 I ), 'Syntax, semantics, and logical form', in A. Kasher (ed.), The Chomskyan Turn, Blackwell, Oxford, 3 3 4-59Molrmann, F. (I 99 3). 'Resumptive quantifiers in exception sentences', in H. de Swart, M. Kanazawa, & C. Pinon (eds), Proceedings of
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University Press, New Haven, CT, 247-70. Mostowski, A. {I9S7). 'On a generalization of quantification', Fundamenta Mathematicae, 44. I 2-3 6. Sher, G. ( 1 99 1 ), The Bounds of Logic, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Sher, G. ( 1 996), 'Semanrics and Logic' in S. Lappin (ed.), The Handbook ofContemporary Semantic Theory, Blackwell, Oxford, 5 1 1 -37· Westerst:ihl, D. ( 1 9H9), 'Quantifiers in For mal and Natural Languages' in D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds.), Handbook ofPhilo sophical Logic, Vol. IV, Reidel, Dordrechr, 1-1 3 I .
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Molrmann, F. ( I 99S). 'Exceprion senrences and polyadic quantification', Philosophy and Linguistics, 18, 223-Xo. Monrague, R. (I 97�). 'The proper rrearmenr of quanrificarion in ordinary English', in R. Monrague, Formal Philosophy (edited by
R. Thomason), Yale
journal ofSm�antia
1 3: 22 1 -263
© Oxford University Press 1 9'}6
Meaning and Use of not . . . until
HENRIETTE DE SWART Department ofLinguistics, Stanford University
Abstract
I I NTROD U C T I O N I .I
Scope, polarity and lexical composition
In temporal semantics, a distinction is made between durative or atelic sentences ( I ) and non-durative or relic sentences (2):
( I ) a. Susan loves Paul. b. Andrew swam. (2) a. Eve drew a circle. b. Mary reached the summit. Vendler (I957) provides a more fine-grained classification and distinguishes between states (1a) and activities ( I b), and accomplishments (2a) and achieve ments (2b). 1 In this paper I will ignore the distinction between accomplish ments and achievements and taken them together as the class of event predicates. Following Bach ( I 986), I will use the term 'eventuality' to generalize over states, activities, and events. A number of time adverbials are sensitive to the aspectual character of the sentence they combine with. Among others, this is true for time adverbials and
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Time adverbials introduced by until impose restrictions on the aspectual class of the main clause they combine with: they only combine with durative sentences. In negative sentences, the situation is more complex. The question arises whether negative sentences are durative, or whether there is a separate use of until as a negative polarity item. In this paper, I discuss the three treatments of not . . . until that are characterized in the literature as the scope analysis, the ambiguity thesis and the lexical composition approach. I work out the interpretation of the three approaches in an event-based semantics, and argue that they are truth-conditionally equivalent in sentences containing an explicit negation. Furthermore, they generate the same pragmatic implicatures. A separate negative polarity use of until is motivated by sentences containing NPI-licensers different from explicit negation, though. The observation that the scope analysis, the ambiguity thesis and the lexical composition approach are semantically and pragmatically equivalent in sentences containing an explicit negation helps us describe the similarities and differences between the expression of exclusion of a range ofvalues on the time axis in a variety of languages.
222
Meaning and Use of not . . . until
temporal clauses introduced by until. Until only combines with durative sentences containing a state or activity description: (3) a. b. c. d.
Susan wrote until midnight. Susan wrote letters until midnight. Susan didn't write a letter until midnight. *Susan wrote a letter until midnight.
(4) a. Susan doesn't have a red cent. b. No one lifted a finger to help me. c. If any of you ever goes to Paris, you should come to visit me. d. This is more money than anyone would have expected to get. e. This is the best movie I have ever seen. £ George is too lazy to do anything. One of the points of discussion in the interpretation of not . . . until concerns the ambiguity of sentences like ( s ):
( s ) The princess did not sleep until nine o'clock. On one reading of the sentence, ( s ) means that the princess did not sleep all the time until nine o'clock (that is, she woke up earlier than nine). Alternatively ( s ) can be used to claim that there was not a situation of the princess being asleep until nine o'clock (i.e. until nine o'clock, she was awake). On this reading, there is a strong suggestion that the princess fell asleep at or shortly after nine.2 Defenders of the one until-theory like Smith ( 1974) and Mittwoch (1977) claim that the ambiguity of sentences like ( s ) is due to a difference in scope. If negation can take either wide or narrow scope with respect to the until-phrase, the two readings can be represented as in (6): (6) The princess did not sleep until nine o'clock. a. -.(until nine o'clock (the princess slept)) b. (until nine o'clock (-.(the princess slept)))
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The fact that negative sentences combine with until has been taken as an argument that negation is an aspectual operator, which yields durative sentences as output. Under this assumption, the contrast between (3c) and (3d) is explained as a difference in aspectual character between non-durative sentences and their durative negative counterpart. Alternatively, it has been suggested that there are two untils: one the well-known durative until and the other a punctual until which only shows up as a negative polarity item (NPI). In this view, (3d) is out because the sentence is not durative, and does not contain an NPI-licenser. Negative polarity items are expressions like any, ever, lift a finger, which only show up in the context of negation, negative quantifiers, if clauses, comparatives, superlatives, too , and the like (c£ Ladusaw 1 979):
Henriette de Swart
223
(7) a. The princess didn't wake up until nine. b. The princess didn't wake up before nine. c. The princess woke up at nine (or shortly thereafter). I assume that Karttunen does not take the commitment to (7c) to be part of the assertion, but views it as an implicature. This seems reasonable in view of the fact that the implicature can be cancelled (as in (8a)) or suspended (as in (8b)) (similar examples are in Horn, 1 972):3 (8) a. She said she wouldn't come until Friday. In the end, she didn't come at all. b. I won't leave until Friday, if at all.
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The combination of wide scope negation with durative until in (6a) gives us the interpretation in which it is not the case that the princess slept all the time until nine o'clock, but she woke up earlier. The narrow scope of negation with respect to durative until means that, at least until nine o'clock, it was the case that the princess was not asleep. Karttunen ( 1974) denies the durative character of negative sentences, and argues against the one until-theory. He claims that negation always takes wide scope over the until-phrase, so that (6a) is the only correct representation of the logical structure of the sentence. In this view, the different readings of (6) fall out from a lexical ambiguity in the predicate, which correlates with an ambiguity in the until-phrase. He argues that the verb sleep can have a stative reading under which it means 'be asleep' or an inchoative reading under which it gets the meaning 'fall asleep'. He claims furthermore that the negative polarity use of until is not durative but punctual: it is used to locate events in time. The claim that negative polarity until is not durative but punctual is supported by the combination of until with event predicates in negative sentences such as (Jc), but not in affirmative sentences like (3d). Karttunen ana lyzes punctual until as logically equivalent to before. Thus under the stative reading of the predicate and the regular durative interpretation of until, ( s ) means that it was not the case that the princess slept until nine o'clock (she woke up earlier). Under the inchoative reading of the predicate and the negative polarity, punctual reading of until, the princess would not begin to sleep before nine (that is, her falling asleep would occur at nine or later). There is more to the meaning of negative polarity until than its logical equivalence to before. Karttunen notes that the focus is not so much on the absence of an event in the period before a certain point in time (which is what (6b) conveys), but on the fact that the event only happens after a certain point in time. This use of until implies that the event does indeed take place, but that it occurred later than expected. According to Karttunen, (7a) commits the speaker to the truth of both (7b) and (7c):
224
Meaning and Use of not . . . until
The intuition that nine o'clock is somehow late for the princess to wake up is further illustrated in (9) and (10) (Hom I 972 discusses analogous examples): (9) a. b. ( 1 0) a. b.
*The princess slept until nine at the earliest. The princess slept until nine at the latest. The princess didn't wake up until nine at the earliest. *The princess didn't wake up until nine at the latest.
(r r) a. The princess did not sleep until nine o'clock. b. The princess did not wake up until nine o'clock. It would be incorrect to claim that the princess woke up from nine o'clock onwards in ( 1 1 b). In order to account for non-durative sentences under nega tion, Tovena (1995) generalizes the composition approach, and claims that not . . . until is a complex operator expressing Allen's (I 984) START relation. Under this analysis, nine o'clock marks the start of the waking-up event in (I I b). Both proposals underline Karttunen's claim that not . . . until focusses on the location in time of the event, rather than its absence until then. The feeling of'lateness' is not explained, though. Declerck's (1995) proposal is the best-worked-out version of the lexical composition approach. It accounts for both the focus on the actualization of the event and the idea oflateness by treating not . . . until in
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Intuitively, (9) stretches the duration of the state as long as possible, whereas ( 10) focusses on the earliest possible moment the situation can hold. In order to capture this feeling of'lateness', Karttunen assumes that negative polarity until t pramatically presupposes that the event occurs before or at t. The time period beginning at t is then the very last cut of the time stretch during which we would expect the event e to occur, so it happens late. According to Karttunen, neither the intuition that the event is thought of as actually happening, nor the feeling oflateness are captured by the scope analysis. He takes this as additional evidence for his ambiguity approach: it will be part ofthe lexical meaning of the negative polarity item until. Mitrwoch (I 977) acknowledges that her scope analysis captures neither the inference that the event actually happens, nor the idea of 'lateness'. However, she argues that this is not crucial, because these meaning effects are implicatures. As such, they are part of the pragmatics of not . . . until, and do not motivate an analysis of negative polarity until as a separate lexical item. As far as the semantics is concerned, Mitrwoch claims that there is insufficient evidence in favor of the rwo untils-theory, and that it is enough to have j ust one, durative until. A third line of study treats negation as composing directly with the temporal connective. According to Hitzeman (I 99 I ), negation reverses the meaning of until in such a way that 'at all times up to t' gets to mean 'from t onwards'. Although such an analysis can account for examples like ( I I a), it does not work for cases like ( I I b):
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English as a stereotyped unit meaning 'only'. One argument in favor of this approach is that not . . . until is lexicalized in other languages as one word, e.g. German erst, and Dutch pas. Although not mentioned by Declerck, we can add that it is not uncommon for exclusive focus particles to be realized as a discontinuous unit involving negation, e.g. French ne . . . que. Declerck's analysis is interesting, because it captures most of the semantic and pragmatic meaning aspects of not . . . until. According to this interpretation, the event actually occurs, because exclusive particles akin to only generally come with a presupposition which triggers this effect, and the event occurs late, because the alternatives are ordered on a scale.
The structure ofthe paper
The three treatments of not . . . until briefly presented here each have their own attractive features. The question arises which one best describes the semantics and pragmatics of the construction. Mittwoch's scope analysis has the advantage of defending the most conservative approach. Scope ambiguities play an important role in semantic theory, so there is nothing particularly strange about the interpretation of not . . . until. It is a drawback for boi:h the ambiguity thesis and the lexical composition approach that they have to postulate two untils. As a result, the properties of until in negative sentences have to be stipulated separately, and cannot be derived from its use in affirmative sentences. Thus, these analyses do not observe the principle of compositionality of meaning. However, Karttunen's ambiguity thesis and Declerck's lexical composition approach seem to be able to explain certain aspects of the meaning of not . . . until which are not addressed by the scope analysis. This concerns in particular the implicature that the event actually takes place, and the feeling of 'lateness'. It is hard to evaluate the different proposals at this point, mainly because none of the authors provide a formal analysis of until. The aim of this paper is to make the meaning and use of until and not . . . until precise by providing an explicit interpretation in an event-based temporal semantics. Part of the issue whether aspectual adverbials have a separate use as negative polarity items revolves around the question of the aspectual character of negative sentences. The one until theory makes crucial use of negation as an aspectual operator, whereas Karttunen and others deny that negative sentences are durative. In section 2, I discuss some of the general combinatorial criteria used to determine the aspectual character of sentences. It turns out that data from French provide sufficient evidence to conclude that negative sentences are durative. I argue furthermore that negative sentences are referential in the sense that they inttoduce a discourse referent which corresponds with the negative state of affairs described by the sentence as a whole. In section 3, I develop an analysis of regular durative until in event semantics.
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I .2
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2
N E G A T I O N A N D D U RAT I V I T Y 2.1
Combinatorial criteria
A number of linguistic tests have been developed to distinguish durative and non-durative sentences. For instance, durative sentences combine with Jor adverbials, whereas non-durative sentences combine with in -adverbials, and with the aspectual verb take: ( I 2) Jor-adverbials a. Susan loved Paul for many years. b. Andrew swam for three hours. c. #Eve drew a circle for three hours.4 d. #Mary reached the summit for two hours. ( 1 3) in -adverbials a. #Susan loved Paul in many years.5 b. #Andrew ran in three hours.
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In section 4, I extend the analysis to the semantics of negative sentences involving until, spelling out the scope analysis, the ambiguity thesis and the lexical composition approach in this framework. The conclusion is that for sentences which involve an explicit occurrence of negation, the three analyses are truth-conditionally equivalent. They all interpret not . . . until as defining exclusion on a temporal scale. Section s addresses the pragmatics of not . . . until. Given certain independently motivated pragmatic assumptions, I argue that even the scope analysis generates the implicature that the event actually arises. Karttunen's intuition that the event occurs 'late' turns out to be related to the interpretation of not . . . until as an expression of scalar exclusion in the temporal domain. All three approaches then generate the same pragmatic implicatures. Section 6 discusses a number of contexts which potentially allow us to discriminate between the three different treatments of not . . . until. The scope and polarity analyses develop different, but equivalent representations for sentences expressing exclusion on a temporal scale in German, Dutch, French, and Finnish. The lexicalist approach does not provide insight into the way the complex meaning is built up in different languages. Although Karttunen claims otherwise, the cross-linguistic comparison does not provide evidence in favor of the ambiguity thesis. However, examples of until which do not involve negation or durative contexts, but which occur in contexts which license negative polarity items cannot be explained under either a scope analysis, or a lexical composition approach. I conclude that this provides evidence in favor of a separate use of until as a negative polarity item, and that Karttunen's analysis is j ustified.
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c. Eve drew a circle in ten minutes. d. Mary reached the summit in three hours. ( I 4) take a. # It took Susan many years to love Paul. b. # It took Andrew three hours to run. c. It took Eve ten minutes to draw a circle. d. It took Mary three hours to reach the summit. If we limit ourselves to these combinatorial tests, we seem to be forced to the conclusion that negative sentences are both durative and non-durative, for they combine with for- and in -adverbials alike, as observed by Krifka ( I989):
The situation is further complicated by the fact that negative sentences do not combine with take, as shown in (I s c), which suggests that the criteria used are inconsistent in some sense. There are different ways in which one can try to solve this puzzle. One option is to say that the combinatorial criteria only apply to affirmative sentences and that for and in behave in different ways in negative sentences. This is the position adopted by Vlach ( I 993), who argues that the time adverbials in ( I s) double as negative polarity items. As such, they don't tell us anything about the aspectual character of negative sentences. This is essentially the ambiguity thesis extended to other time adverbials. A good argument in favor of the classification of some expression as a negative polarity item is to show that it is licensed not just by negation, but by certain non-negative expressions which typically license negative polarity items as well. Following this line of argumentation, Vlach ( I 993) refers to Mittwoch ( I 98 8) who points out that for- and in -adverbials also occur in sentences containing superlatives, and closely related expressions such as thefirst/last/only (c( Hoeksema I 986):
( I 6) a. This is the liveliest party I have been to for/in a long time. b. This is the first/only proper meal I have had for/in weeks. According to Vlach, any attempt to read these sentences with the ordinary durative interpretation of for runs into obvious problems. If we treat the aspectual adverbials in ( I 6) as negative polarity items, there is no reason not to do the same in (I s). Vlach concludes that we need not ascribe any aspectual effect to negation. One way to determine the aspecrual character of negative sentences without the interference of negative polarity is to carry out a cross-linguistic study of the combinatorial criteria. This is the approach adopted in de Swart (I99S)· One
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( I s) a. Jane did not drink (a glass oD wine for two days. b. Jane did not drink (a glass oD wine in two days. c. *It took Jane two days not to drink (a glass oD wine.
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example of a language in which there is no interference between durative time adverbials and negative polarity is French. We observe that durative time adverbials introduced by pendant combine with negative sentences:
Negative sentences do not combine with non-durative en-adverbials: (I 8) en-adverbials a. #Michele a couru en trois heures. Michele has run in three hours. c. Michele a ecrit une lettre en une demi-heure. Michele has written a letter in half an hour. d. #Michele n'a pas ete au marche en trois mois. Michele has not been to the marketplace in three months. e. #Je n'ai pas vu Michele en trois mois. I haven't seen Michele in three months. Neither pendant- nor en-adverbials combine with superlatives or other contexts which typically trigger negative polarity items. Compare the sentences . in (19) and (2o) (from Fauconnier 1 98o): (I9) a. *C'est le premier/seul bon repas que j'aie eu en/pendant trois mois. This is the first/only good meal I have had in/for three months. b. *C'est le meilleur repas que j'aie eu en/pendant trois mois. This is the best meal I have had in/for three months. (2o) a. Ce cadeau est le plus beau qu'on m'ait jamais fait. This present is the most beautiful one has ever given me. b. C'est le seul homme politique qui soit du tout honnete. It's the only politician who is at all honest. On the basis of the French data, I conclude that negative sentences are durative. They only combine with non-durative adverbials in languages (such as English) in which these expressions also show up in contexts which license negative polarity items.
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( I 7) pendant -adverbials a. Michele a ete malheureuse pendant des annees. Michele has been unhappy for years. b. Michele a couru pendant trois heures. Michele has run for three hours. c. #Michele a ecrit une lettre pendant trois heures. Michele has written a letter for three hours. d. Pendant des annees , Michele n'aima pas le chocolat. For years Michele didn't like chocolate. e. Pendant trois semaines, Michele n'est pas rentree a la maison. For three weeks Michele didn't come home.
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Negative states ofaffairs
(2 1 ) a. John didn't know the answer to the problem. This lasted until the teacher did the solution on the board. b. John did not ask Mary to dance at the party. It made her angry. If Hwang and Asher are right that we need some (discourse) entity as the referent for the pronouns this and it, we seem to be committed to this position for both affirmative and negative sentences. However, (2 1 ) could still be taken to confirm Asher's view that the negation of an event refers to a fact. An interpretation in terms offacts is not appropriate for sentences like (22), though:
(22) What happened next was that the consulate didn't give us our visa. Assuming with Vendler ( 1 967), Horn ( 1 989: s s), and others that only events, and not facts, can 'happen', it looks like we have a negative event here, and not simply a fact. A third argument in favor of the referential character of negative sentences is provided by Stockwell, Schachter, & Partee ( 1 97 3), who point out that there are cases where the negation of an event may, loosely speaking, itself be an 'event'. They discuss cases like not paying taxes, not getting up early, not going to church , not eating dinner, etc., which involve the breaking of a habitual or expected pattern of activity. This type of eventuality can even be embedded under frequency adverbs:
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The combinatorial criteria distinguish between durative and non-durative sentences. Verkuyl ( 1 993) classifies negative sentences as states. In de Swart ( 1 995), I provide further evidence in favor of this position. One argument is that negative sentences are true at all instants of the interval for which the sentence holds, which is the defining property of states according to Dowty ( 1 979). One consequence of the position that negative sentences denote negative states of affairs is that I actually claim there is a discourse referent for the negative sentence as a whole. This discourse referent is a state, irrespective of the question whether the sentence embedded under the negation operator refers to a state or an event. In this, I differ from Kamp & Reyle ( 1 993) for instance, who claim that negation is a closing operator, and who interpret negative sentences as the absence of an event, rather than the state of something not happening. Given that this could be argued to be a more conservative approach, my position needs some further motivation. One argument in favor of the idea that negative sentences introduce their own discourse referent comes from the observation that negative sentences license discourse anaphora. The following examples are provided by Asher ( 1 993) and Hwang ( 1 992) respectively:
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(23) a. He often hasn't paid taxes. b. He sometimes doesn't eat dinner. c. He doesn't eat dinner two nights a week.
3 UN TIL I N EVENT S E M A N T I C S 3.1
General notions ofevent semantics
I adopt a neo-Davidsonian analysis, and assume that all predicates come with an extra event argument. Tenseless clauses are interpreted as denoting sets of eventualities, that is, members of the domain of eventualities e. A verb which has all its argument places filled by either constants or variables provides an atomic eventuality description. Such eventualities are in general conceived of as minimal: the eventuality does not contain anything in addition to what is supported by the predicate-argument structure. The domain e of eventualities is partially ordered by a part-whole relation � and a precedence relation