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CONNECTIONS AMONG SCALES, PLURALITY, AND IINTENSIONALITY IN SPANISH

Padilla-Reyes, Ramon E, D
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3713-7396
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523540040987239

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation elucidates the connection between scales and non-gradable expressions in the Spanish language, with a specific focus on the Puerto Rican dialect. I explore three instantiations of scales used by speakers to understand certain elative and plural expressions. The discoveries in the dissertation are important for understanding how the non-gradable semantic system interacts with scales, in adults and children. This dissertation presents evidence that the mechanism that the semantic system uses to relate scales to concepts is a homomorphic relation. Chapter 1 provides a background and key theoretical assumptions concerning gradability, models, and interpretation. Chapter 2 gives an analysis of trans-categorical elative modifier expressions in Spanish such as demasiado/too-much and mas/more. The expression of extremeness in Puerto Rican Spanish is encoded in a series of modifiers, which are attached to adjectival, nominal or verbal elements, giving rise to three measurable readings depending on the modified category: extreme degree, extreme quantity or extreme pluractionality. Furthermore, these three readings convey an intensional, beyond-expected reading. The proper treatment of the measurable phenomena requires a generalization of gradability and modification trans-categorially. A semantic account is presented in which extremeness is mapped along several contextually-dependent dimensions or scales, which are sensitive to the properties of the event associated with the expression in the scope of the modifier. This mapping is due to a homomorphic relation between the events structure and the scale measuring it. Chapter 3 addresses the development and interaction of distributive and collective interpretation of plural quantifiers in Puerto Rican Spanish. Dotlacil (2010) claims that quantifiers form a collective-distributive pragmatic scale, which at one extreme includes lexically distributive quantifiers each/every and at the opposite (collective) extreme the contextually specified some and the, such that, distributive quantifiers are more informative than group-introducing quantifiers. To explore whether child-language evidence supports Dotlacil’s theory, we tested children’s acceptance of the lexical distributive cada/each in Spanish and whether it predicts their acceptance of the collective plural definite los/the and unos/some. We administered a Truth Value Judgment Task to typically-developing Spanish speakers in Puerto Rico across seven age groups (5-10 and adults, n = 108). We found that all appropriate quantifiers develop in parallel. Our data shows that a whole pragmatic system develops wherein cada is the driving force. Chapter 4 looks at the intensional reading in the expressions seen in Chapter 2. These terms convey a “beyond-expected” reading. This reading appears to be dependent on scales. The proper treatment of the intensional reading requires that we relate the meaning of these extreme expressions and degree exclamatives to intensionality, arguing that they relativize the degree of the action or property to the speaker’s expectation, thus conveying a `beyond-expected’ reading. I show that the association between expectation and scales is due to a homomorphic relation between the expressions’ meaning and scales, such that, the temporal development of an object projects an expectation.
John Grinstead, Dr. (Advisor)
Zhiguo Xie, Dr. (Committee Member)
Glenn Martinez, Dr. (Committee Member)
200 p.
Hispanic Americans; Linguistics; Logic; Philosophy; Psychology
Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish, Semantics, Pragmatics, Formal Langues, Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition, Scales, Degrees, Intensionality, Plurality, Pluractionality, Quantifiers, Determiners, Distributivity, Collectivity, Possible Worlds

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Citations

  • Padilla-Reyes, D, R. E. (2018). CONNECTIONS AMONG SCALES, PLURALITY, AND IINTENSIONALITY IN SPANISH [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523540040987239

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Padilla-Reyes, D, Ramon. CONNECTIONS AMONG SCALES, PLURALITY, AND IINTENSIONALITY IN SPANISH. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523540040987239.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Padilla-Reyes, D, Ramon. "CONNECTIONS AMONG SCALES, PLURALITY, AND IINTENSIONALITY IN SPANISH." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1523540040987239

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1523540040987239
463
© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License CONNECTIONS AMONG SCALES, PLURALITY, AND IINTENSIONALITY IN SPANISH by Ramon E Padilla-Reyes D is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.