Multidimensional Semantics with Unidimensional Glue Logic
Gianluca Giorgolo, Ash Asudeh · 2011
This paper presents an extension of [Arnold and Sadler 2010]’s analysis of appositive meaning in LFG in light of the data discussed in [AnderBois et al. 2010]. The key insight of AnderBois et al.’s data is the existence of a form of restricted interaction between at-issue meaning and the meaning introduced by appositives and similar side comment expressions. The data challenges [Potts 2005]’s view, shared by Arnold and Sadler, that the at-issue and non at-issue meaning dimensions form two completely independent semantic contributions. AnderBois et al. conclude from this that a multidimensional approach is not necessary and a unidimensional one better explains the data. We disagree with this view and propose to interpret the data in a different way. In our opinion, the data demonstrates that there are certain dynamic semantic phenomena that allow the two meaning dimensions to interact in a restricted way, but that the analysis of Potts and Arnold and Sadler is still preferable to a unidimensional one. Our approach is quite similar to the one presented in [Nouwen 2007] on the basis of different but related data. We will cast our analysis in the Correspondence Architecture, showing how the analysis of Arnold and Sadler can be modified and extended to cope with the new data. The key insight is that multidimensionality is represented only in the meaning language, using a mechanism that can compute conventional implicatures and their interactions with dynamic phenomena, thus capturing the [AnderBois et al. 2010] data, while maintaining unidimensionality in the Glue logic. In other words, in contrast to [Arnold and Sadler 2010], we do not represent the at issue and CI dimensions in the Glue logic as a tensored pair. AnderBois et al. identify three distinct phenomena that elicit a semantic interaction between at-issue assertions and appositives: presuppositions, anaphora and ellipsis. In all cases what we see is the introduction of some semantic material in one of the two dimensions of meaning and the subsequent reuse of the material in the other dimension. For instance, the presupposition triggered by “too” in (1) is grounded by the information conveyed by the appositive “a good drummer”: