@article {7408, title = {Finding the force: How children discern possibility and necessity modals}, year = {2022}, abstract = {

This paper investigates when and how children figure out the force of modals: that possibility modals (e.g. can/might) express possibility, and necessity modals (e.g. must/have to), necessity. Modals raise a classic subset problem: given that necessity entails possibility, what prevents learners from hypothesizing possibility meanings for necessity modals? Three solutions to such subset problems can be found in the literature: the first is for learners to rely on downward-entailing environments (Gualmini and Schwarz 2009); the second is a bias for strong (here, necessity) meanings; the third is for learners to rely on pragmatic cues, stemming from the conversational context (Dieuleveut et al. 2019, Rasin and Aravind 2020).\  This paper assesses the viability of each of these solutions, by examining the modals used in speech to and by 2-year-old children, through a combination of corpus studies and experiments testing the guessability of modal force based on their context of use. Our results suggest that given the way modals are used in speech to children, the first solution is not viable, and the second unnecessary. Instead, we argue that the conversational context in which modals occur is highly informative as to their force, and sufficient, in principle, to sidestep the subset problem. Our child results further suggest an early mastery of possibility, but not necessity modals, and show no evidence for a necessity bias.

}, keywords = {corpus study, Human Simulation Paradigm experiment, Language Acquisition, Modals, negation}, author = {Dieuleveut, Anouk and van Dooren, Annemarie and Cournane, Ailis and Hacquard, Valentine} } @article {7409, title = {Finding the force: How children discern possibility and necessity modals}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, year = {2022}, pages = {1{\textendash}42}, keywords = {corpus study, Human Simulation Paradigm experiment, Language Acquisition, Modals, negation}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-022-09196-4}, author = {Dieuleveut, Anouk and van Dooren, Annemarie and Cournane, Ailis and Hacquard, Valentine} } @inproceedings {5823, title = {"No I Am": What are you saying "No" to?}, year = {2016}, address = {Edimbourg}, abstract = {

The English particle \“no\” can be used in a variety of contexts. We propose that \“no\” is three ways ambiguous, distinguished by the type of antecedent utilized: explicit, implicit and exophoric. The second type\—\“no\” with an implicit antecedent addresses a grounding misalignment caused by sources such as speaker\’s bias. This type of \“no\” cannot be used bare. The current semantic theories on \“no\” as an answer particle to negative polar questions and assertions claim that \“no\” is ambiguous between confirming and rejecting the polar question or assertion. The preceding negative polar question or assertion licenses and therefore provides the content for \“no\” in answers like \“No, I AM\”. We argue instead that the ambiguity arises from whether \“no\” is picking an an explicit antecedent\—the queried proposition\—or an implicit one\—the questioner\’s bias. We offer three predictions and show that even positive antecedents with implied bias may license the \“No, I AM\” type of answer; in dialogue, bare \“no\”s only pick up explicit antecedents; the strength of the bias in a negative question influences the rate of the second type of \“no\” uses. We formalize our account in the KoS framework (Ginzburg, 2012). Our analysis highlights the importance of potential mismatches between the information states of different conversational participants in meaning resolution.

}, keywords = {dialogue, KoS, negation, No, non-sentential utterance, polarity particle}, author = {Ye Tian and Jonathan Ginzburg} }