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Saving Hamlet Ellipsis

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Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics 2018 (LACompLing2018)

Part of the book series: Studies in Computational Intelligence ((SCI,volume 860))

Abstract

Hamlet ellipsis (see Parsons 1997) is a propositionalist account of depiction reports (e.g. Mary imagines/paints a unicorn) that analyzes the object DPs in these reports as the result of eliding the infinitive to be (there) from a CP. Hamlet ellipsis has been praised for its uniformity and systematicity, and for its ability to explain the learnability of the meaning of depiction verbs (e.g. imagine, paint). These merits notwithstanding, recent work on ‘objectual’ attitude reports (esp. Forbes 2006; Zimmermann 2016) has identified a number of challenges for Hamlet ellipsis. These include the material inadequacy of this account, its prediction of unattested readings of reports with temporal modifiers, and its prediction of counterintuitive entailments. This paper presents a semantic save for Hamlet ellipsis, called Hamlet semantics, that answers the above challenges. Hamlet semantics denies the elliptical nature of the complement in depiction reports (s.t. object DPs are interpreted in the classical type of DPs, i.e. as intensional generalized quantifiers). The propositional interpretation of the object DPs in these reports is enabled by the particular interpretation of depiction verbs. This interpretation converts intensional quantifiers into ‘existential’ propositions during semantic composition.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These are reports that contain depiction verbs like paint, imagine, conceive, visualize, portray, sculpt, write (about), and draw (see [10, pp. 37, 130–150], [24, p. 232], [32, p. 242], [51, p. 427]).

  2. 2.

    In this paper, we focus on de dicto-readings of depiction reports. These are readings on which the object DPs in these reports describe the content of pictures, mental images, etc. (see [51]; cf. [2]).

  3. 3.

    Note that, while depiction reports like (1b) may be “bad English” (to use Quine’s term, see [40, p. 152]), they are still grammatical. To see this, consider the similarly structured report (\(\dagger \)):

    figure a

    The above notwithstanding, we find that reports with gerundive small clause complements like (\(\ddagger \)) are more natural and intuitively provide better paraphrases of reports like (1a). We will present a likely reason for this judgement in Sect. 3.1.

  4. 4.

    Notably, (13a) violates Percus’ Generalization X (see [37, p. 201]). This rule demands that the world/situation variable that a verb selects for must be coindexed with the nearest lambda abstractor above it (in Forbes’ example: with the lambda abstractor that is associated with imagine). On Percus’ account, the de dicto-reading of (1b) is analyzed as (\(*\)), where \(w_{0}\) and \(w_{1}\) range over situations:

    figure g
  5. 5.

    Below, types are given in superscript. Following standard convention, we let s be the type for indices (i.e. world/time-pairs) or for situations. e and t are the types for individuals and truth-values or truth-combinations, respectively. Types of the form \((\alpha \beta )\) (for short: \(\alpha \beta \)) are associated with functions from objects of type \(\alpha \) to objects of type \(\beta \).

  6. 6.

    In virtue of this interpretation, Hamlet semantics differs from Moltmann’s [31] intensional quantifier analysis of the complements of intensional transitive verbs.

  7. 7.

    We will see in Sect. 4.2 that—given certain constraints—this move still allows depiction verbs to take non-existential quantified DPs in object position.

  8. 8.

    Arguably, modification with vividly works better for imagine than for paint (see (21a) vis-a-vis (\(\star \) a)). In particular, the most natural interpretation of (\(\star \) a) (in (\(\star \) b)) treats vividly as a resultative predicative. I thank an anonymous reviewer for SCI-LACompLing2018 for directing my attention to this issue.

    figure o
  9. 9.

    Maienborn [28] uses these tests as a tool for detecting eventuality arguments. Given the similarities between situations and events (see [23, Sect. 9]), it is not surprising that they double as a diagnostic for situation arguments.

  10. 10.

    For the purposes of this paper, we treat situations as non-decomposable primitives (following [20, 21]). However, nothing hinges on this treatment.

  11. 11.

    see https://thewire.in/history/russian-revolution-catalysed-array-experiments-art (accessed April 27, 2019).

  12. 12.

    In this respect, our situations are distinct from Kratzer-style situations [20, 21] and Davidsonian events [5], which are both “unrepeatable entities with a location in space and time” (see [25, p. 151]). For Kratzer-style situations, this is reflected in the stipulation that “every possible situation s is related to a unique maximal element, which is the world of s” (see [21, p. 660, Condition 5]).

  13. 13.

    see https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11400740 (accessed April 27, 2019).

  14. 14.

    Arguably, the term internal situation is ambiguous in iterated attitude reports like (55a) (i.e. Ferdinand painted Jacob dreaming of an angel). In (55a), the situation that is denoted by the deepest embedded complement (i.e. the situation denoted by an angel) is internal both w.r.t. the inner verb (i.e. dream) and the outer verb (i.e. paint). The relativization of this situation to the attitude verb (here: the replacement of internal situation by depicted situation) avoids this ambiguity.

  15. 15.

    It is closure under maximal similarity that effects the non-anchoredness of propositional facts.

  16. 16.

    For reasons of simplicity, we hereafter neglect tense in the logical translation of our examples.

  17. 17.

    As a result of this event-dependence, the interpretation of (1a) uses two translations of imagine, viz. as a situation-relative predicate of pairs of situations and individuals (i.e. imagine; type s(s(et))) and as a situation-relative predicate of events (i.e. imagine; type s(vt)). One could avoid this ‘dual translation’ by adopting instead the fully-fledged event-interpretation of (1a) (see the Neo-Davidsonian version in (\(\bullet \) a) [3, 35] and the original Davidsonian version in (\(\bullet \) b) [5]). (I thank an anonymous referee for SCI-LACompLing2018 for suggesting the interpretation in (\(\bullet \) a).)

    figure s

    Since the interpretation in (26) is closer in spirit to established semantics for depiction reports (e.g. [49, 50]), we here adopt this interpretation. Readers who prefer the above event-interpretation are free to adopt this interpretation instead. For a compositional implementation of Neo-Davidsonian event semantics, these readers are referred to [4].

  18. 18.

    The semantic deviance of (42) is due to the fact that states (incl. those introduced by be) do not allow for manner modification (see [28]). I thank Sebastian Bücking for providing this reference.

  19. 19.

    An exception to this is Larson [24, p. 232], who labels the discussed class verbs of depiction and imagination.

  20. 20.

    We interpret the difficulty of this endeavor as support for the vivid interpretation of imagination reports.

  21. 21.

    The factivity of portray is supported by the intuitive semantic deviance of reports (e.g. (\(\ominus \)), (\(\odot \))) that report the portrayal-in-i of an individual that does not exist in i:

    figure an

    For ideas about the treatment of such atypical, i.e., non-factive, uses of portray, the reader is referred to our solution to the challenge from concealed iterated attitudes (see Sect. 5.2).

  22. 22.

    Arguably, this analysis would equally serve to answer Challenge 3 for Hamlet ellipsis. (I thank two anonymous referees for SCI-LACompLing2018 for pointing out this possibility.). A similar point can, in fact, be made for Challenges 2 and 4. However, in contrast to (the suitably modified variant of) Hamlet ellipsis, only Hamlet semantics solves Challenges 1 and 5.

  23. 23.

    Thus, Zimmermann [51, p. 435] writes, “for [(17b)] to be true, the picture would not need to imply that there be a real angel—a dream angel would be enough; and obviously the dream angel also suffices to make the sentence [(15a)] true, which would thus be aptly captured by [(17b)].”.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank three anonymous referees for SCI-LACompLing2018 for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. The paper has profited from discussions with Sebastian Bücking, Eugen Fischer, Friederike Moltmann, Frank Sode, Carla Umbach, Dina Voloshina, Markus Werning, and Ede Zimmermann. The research for this paper is supported by the German Research Foundation (via Ede Zimmermann’s grant ZI 683/13-1).

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  1. Institute for Linguistics, Goethe University Frankfurt, Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1, 60323, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Kristina Liefke

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    Roussanka Loukanova

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Liefke, K. (2020). Saving Hamlet Ellipsis. In: Loukanova, R. (eds) Logic and Algorithms in Computational Linguistics 2018 (LACompLing2018). Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 860. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30077-7_2

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