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Knowledge Representation & Reasoning seminar:

Decomposing the Disjunction-Based Free Choice Items in Korean

Dept. of Computer Science, TTU Min-Joo Kim

(in collaboration with Stefan Kaufmann at Northwestern University)

November 4, 2005

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What is Free Choice (FC)?

• In English, sentences containing any instantiate FC; that is, the truth of the sentence is guaranteed regardless of the choice of an individual at issue (Vendler 1967).

(1) Anybody can do it (no matter who he/she is.)(2) Pick any apple (no matter which apple it is). (3) If you have any questions, please do not

hesitate to ask (no matter what kind of questions they are).

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• In the sentences (1-3), the FC effect comes about because of the interaction of two things:

(i) the presence of the expressions that contain any, i.e., anybody, any apple, any questions.

(ii) the presence of a modal operator (e.g., can, may), which has to do with possibility, and the if-conditional.

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Restriction on the distribution of any phrases

• Any expressions cannot occur in extensional contexts, i.e., those that do not contain a modal operator or a conditional. (Below ‘*’ means ungrammatical):

(1’) *Anybody did it.

(2’) *I picked any apple.

(3’) *I asked any questions.

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Any isn’t every or some.

• Noun Phrases (NPs) that contain any cannot be replaced by more ordinary quantificational expressions such as every NP or some NP.

(4)a. Anybody can do it b. Everybody can do it.

• (4a) implicates that even a very incapable person can do it; (4b) doesn’t carry such an implicature.

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Any =/= every

(5)a. Pick any apple. b. Pick every apple.

• (5a) implicates that you can pick one apple regardless of the property of the apple (e.g., color, kind, size).

• But (5b) says that you can take all the apples in the quantification domain.

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Any =/= every continued

(6) a. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

??b. If you have every question, please

do not hesitate to ask.

(6b) is even ungrammatical!

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Any =/= some

(7) a. Pick any apple. b. Pick some apple.

• Unlike (7a), (7b) means that there is some particular apple that the hearer can pick.

• Hence, the sentence doesn’t implicate that the speaker is indifferent to which apple the hearer picks.

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Lessons so far

• NPs that contain any are “felt” to have some sort of quantificational force, but they cannot be equated with NPs that contain every or some.

• Any NPs seem to implicate someone’s, e.g., the speaker’s or the subject’s, indifference as to the choice of an individual at issue.

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What are the quantificational forcesof any NPs?

• “Universal” quantificational force (QF) (Dayal 1998):

(1) Anybody can do it Everybody can do it (+ indifference implicature).

• “Existential QF (Giannakidou 2001):

(2) Pick any apple You’re allowed to pick an apple (+ indifference implicature).

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What about any NPs that occur in negative sentences?

• Any NPs can also occur in negative contexts, as shown in (8-10):

(8) It cannot be done by anyone.

(9) Please don’t take any apple.

(10) I doubt that you have any questions.

• The NPs that occur in negative contexts are called Negative Polarity Items (NPIs).

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Quantificational forces of NPIs

• Sentences (8-10) seem to involve either universal or existential quantification, as the following paraphrases show:

(8) It cannot be done by anyone No one can do this. (For all x, x cannot do it.)

(9) Please don’t take any apple. Please take no apple. (For all x such that x is an apple, you are

not allowed to take x.)

(10) I doubt that you have any questions. I believe that you have no questions. (I believe that there is no x

such that x is a question and you have x.)

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Do FC any expressions and NP any expressions mean the same?

• Any NPs that behave like NPIs mean something slightly different from those that behave like FC items.

FC any:(1) Anybody can do it Even the most incapable

person can do it.

NP any:(8) It cannot be done by anyone Even the most

capable person cannot do it.

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FC any:

(2) Pick any apple.

You can take even the best apple, e.g., the largest, and most scrumptious-looking one.

NP any:

(9) Please don’t take any apple.

You can take no apple even the worst one, e.g., a partly rotten apple.

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FC any:(3) If you have any questions, please do not

hesitate to ask. You can ask a question even if it’s a stupid

one.

NP any:(10) I doubt that you have any questions. I believe that you have no questions. Almost no implicature that has to do with the

“quality” of the question.

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Lessons from comparing FC any and NPI any expressions

• FC any expressions always carry “I don’t care” or “regardless of X” implicatures; NP any expressions do not necessarily carry such implicatures.

• The semantics of FC any expressions seem to point to the lowest guy on the scale; NP any expressions seem to point to the highest guy on the scale.

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Road map for the remainder of the talk

• To focus on the ‘any’ expressions that bring about FC effects.

• To examine how the FC phenomenon is manifested in Korean, which is a very different language than English.

• To explore a compositional way of deriving the FC effects of Korean ‘any’ expressions.

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Why Korean?

• We shall see that Korean provides a nice window into FC, because things are more “transparent” there.

Any in English is spelled out into two things (at least).

So we can have a clearer idea as to how to derive the FC effects in a compositional way by putting the semantics of each element together.

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What we’re going to propose:

• The meaning of FC items in Korean is concerned with quantifying over ways of choosing an individual from a contextually salient set.

• That is, the quantification is not over individuals but over choice functions in the sense of Kratzer (1998).

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Some background on Korean

• English has Subject Verb Object word order; Korean has SOV word order.

• Korean is an aggultanative language: most word stems are bound morphemes, so they cannot stand alone. Plus, words that have purely grammatical functions are also bound morphemes as well.

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Protocols for data presentation in linguistics

(11) Transcription: John-un Mary-lul salangha-n-ta. Word by word gloss: J.-Top M.-Acc love-non.pst-decl Translation: ‘John loves Mary.’

Some abbreviations: Top TopicNom Nominative (Subject) case marker

Acc Accusative (Objective) case marker Non.pst Non-past tensePst PastDecl Declarative sentence.Impr Imperative sentenceQ Question particle

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FC in Korean

• In Korean, FC expressions are realized as NPs that consist of some pronoun nwukwu or amwu and an apparent disjunction marker –na.

(12) nwukwu-na ku il-ul hal-swuiss-ta. nwukwu-NA that work-acc do-can-decl. ‘Anybody can do it (no matter who he/she is.)’

(13) Amwu-na tyeley o-la. amwu-NA bring come-impr. ‘Bring anybody (no matter who he/she is).’

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The distribution of -na

• Disjunction marker:(14) Mary-na John-i sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta.

M.-or J.-Nom apple-Acc eat-past-decl

‘Mary or John ate the apple.’

• Adverb of quantification:

(15) Mary-nun acim-ey ence-na wuywu-lul

M.-Top morning-loc when-NA milk-Acc

mashi-n-ta.

drink-non.pst-decl

‘Mary always drinks milk in the morning’ (For every situation in the morning, Mary drinks milk in that situation.)

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Distribution of -na

• Question particle:(16) Nwukwu-ka o-ess-na? Nwukwu-Nom come-pst-Q

‘Did someone come?’ or ‘I wonder whether someone came.’

• Second best choice reading:(17) Yeonghwa-na po-ca. movie-NA watch-suggestive.

‘Let’s watch a movie (for we don’t have anything else to do.)

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Nwukwu vs. Amwu: Difference 1

• Without –na, nwukwu can occur in questions, as shown in (18). For this reason, nwukwu is treated as an indeterminate pronoun in the literature.

(18) Nwukwu-ka o-ess-ni? who-nom come-pst-Q ‘Who came?’ or ‘Did anybody come?’

• In contrast, amwu cannot occur in questions, as shown in (19).

(19) *Amwu-ka o-ess-ni? who-nom come-pst-Q Intended: ‘Who came?’ or ‘Did anybody come?’

• To simply things, I’ll not gloss nwukwu, amwu and -na.

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Nwukwu vs. Amwu: Difference 2

• Both nwukwu-na and amwu-na carry a universal QF. But only amwu-na can carry an existential QF, in addition to a universal QF.

(20) nwukwu-na/amwu-na ku il-ul hal-swuiss-ta. nwukwu-NA/amwu-NA that work-acc do-can-decl. ‘Everybody can do the work (no matter who he/she is.)’

(21) Nwukwu-na teylye o-la. Nwukwu-NA bring come-impr. ‘(You may) bring everyone regardless of who he/she is.’

(22) Amwu-na teylye o-la. Amwu-NA bring come-impr. ‘(You may) bring a person regardless of who he/she is.’

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Nwukwu-na & amwu-na vs. any

• Unlike any phrases, both nwukwu-na and amwu-na phrases can occur in extensional contexts, i.e., contexts that do not involve modal operators or if-conditionals.

(23)a.*John met anybody. b. John will meet anybody. c. ?John met ANYbody. d. John met just anybody.

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(24) John-un nwukwu-na man-ess-ta.

J.-top nwukwu-NA meet-pst-decl.

‘John met anyone regardless of who he/she is.’

(25) John-un amwu-na man-ess-ta.

J.-top amwu-NA meet-pst-decl.

‘John met a person regardless of who he/she is.’

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Interim summary

• Korean has two types of FC items: nwukwu-na amwu-na+wh -whUniv. QF only both Univ. & Exist. QF

• Unlike any NPs in English, both nwukwu-na and amwu-na can occur in extensional contexts (even without stress on them).

• The morpheme –na occurs in various environments including disjunction, universal quantification over situations, and questions, and also carries a second best choice implicature. Not an ordinary disjunction.

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Road map for the remainder of the talk

• First, we’ll derive on the FC effects of nwukwu-na employing a choice functional approach. (We’ll come back to the FC effects of amwu-na later.)

• Second, we will discuss the welcome results of the proposed analysis.

• Third, we’ll talk about the remaining issues.

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A choice functional analysis of nwukwu-na

• The basic idea: The FC effects of nwukwu-na arise from the combination of the following elements:

(i) The mention of a nwukwu-na

(ii) Nwukwu

(iii) -na

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Details of the proposal

– The mention of nwukwu-na introduces a choice function variable f: that is, f means something like ‘a way to choose.’

– Nwukwu denotes a set of individuals to which the choice function applies (see Hamblin 1973).

– The morpheme -na is a universal quantifier that ranges over choice functions, rather than individuals, sets, or propositions.

– This morpheme also triggers an indifference implicature that accompanies FC items.

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The gist of the proposal

• The FC phenomena in Korean are concerned with universally quantifying over ways of choosing an individual from a contextually salient set of individuals that is denoted by the indeterminate pronoun nwukwu.

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What is a choice function?

• F is a choice function (CF) if it applies to a set-denoting expression and returns a specific or unique individual in that set (Reinhart 1997).

(26) f<<et>, e> is a CF if Q<et>(f(P<et>)) = 1.

• The motivation for adopting a CF analysis is to capture the behavior of wide-scope indefinites, which is illustrated in (27) and (28).

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Widest scope indefinites

(27) Each teacher overheard the rumor that a student of mine had been called before the dean. (Fodor and Sag 1982)

(28) Every one of those men moved to Paris because some woman lived there. (adapted from Abusch 1994).

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What’s puzzling about the indefinites in (27-28)

• The indefinites in these sentences are “stuck” in an island, namely, a complex NP that consists of a noun and its clausal complement, and an adverbial clause.

• But they somehow seem to take scope over the entire sentences, making them denote propositions about some particular student of the speaker and some particular woman living in Paris, respectively.

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Deriving the wide scope readings of (27-28)

• The indefinites in (27) and (28) introduce choice function variables.

• These variables are left free in the semantic computation until the end.

• At the end of the computational process, the variables get existentially closed over (Heim 1982), thereby taking widest scope over the entire sentence.

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Application of a CF to a simple case

(29) Every student bought some book.

• Two readings of (29):

Reading 1: There is some particular book that every student in the quantification domain bought. (some > every)

Reading 2: Every student bought potentially different books. (every > some)

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• Logical forms for (29) under a choice functional analysis:

Reading 1: There is some function f such that it is a choice function and, for all individual z, if z is a student, z bought the result of applying f to the set of books. (some > all)

Reading 2: For all individual z, if z is a student, there is some function f such that f is a choice function and z bought the result of applying f to the set of books.

(all > some)

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Kratzerian CF analysis

• Departing from Reinhart (1997), Kratzer (1998) claims that a CF contains a free individual variable inside them.

(30) f<<et>, e> is a CF if Q<et>(f(<x, P<et>>)) = 1.

• The free individual variable inside a CF reflects the point of view from which the selection of the individual is made.

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Application of a CF analysis to Korean FC items

Consider (31), which contains nwukwu-na.

(31) John-un nwukwu-na man-ess-ta.

J.-top nwukwu-NA meet-pst-decl.

‘John met anyone regardless of who he/she is.’

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Interpretive procedure for (31)

– The mention of nwukwu-na introduces a choice function variable.

– Nwukwu denotes a set of individuals to which the choice function applies.

– The morpheme -na is a universal quantifier that ranges over choice functions.

– It is also responsible for the indifference reading, i.e., the subject John didn’t care about whom to meet.

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Logical form of (31)

• For all f such that f is a choice function, John met the result of applying f to the contextually salient set of individuals [and John didn’t care about the identity of f, i.e., how each individual that he met was selected].

• The bracketed part carries indifference conventional implicature triggered by –na.

• How do we know whether it’s a conventional implicature? Because it’s not cancelable, as shown in (32).

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Non-cancellability of the implicature triggered by nwukwu-na

• Below ‘#’ indicates contradiction or semantic anomaly:

(32) John-un nwukwu-na man-ess-ta.

J.-top nwukwu-NA meet-pst-decl.

‘John met anyone regardless of who he/she is.’

#Sashil, ku-nun thukjeong-in-man man-ess-ta

Actually, he-top certain-person-only meet-pst-decl

‘Actually, he only met certain people.’

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Welcome results

• Welcome result 1: the proposed analysis can deal with the ambiguity that has to do with attitude ascriptions.

• Description of the phenomenon: FC items can reflect either the speaker’s indifference or the sentence subject’s indifference (Choi 2005). Consider (32).

(32) Nwukwu-na teylye o-la. Nwukwu-NA bring come-impr. ‘(You may) bring anyone you like.’ Subject-oriented. ‘(You may) bring anyone I like.’ Speaker-oriented.

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• Under the proposed analysis, the two readings of (32) arise because the choice function introduced by the mention of nwukwu-na contains a free individual variable that serves as the attitude holder.

• Since this variable is free, it can be bound by a contextually salient individual.

• The value of this variable can be either the speaker or the sentential subject, because the content of a sentence can reflect either the speaker’s or the agent’s perspective on things.

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Welcome result 2

• Under the proposed analysis, there is no need to resort to modal operators in interpreting sentences containing FC items in Korean.

• This is because the FC effect is not induced by a modal operator; rather, it comes from the combination of three things:

(i) the mention of a FC item nwukwu-na;(ii) the semantics of nwukwu; and(iii) the semantic contributions of –na.

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Welcome result 3

• The proposed analysis can also readily derive a concessive reading or a scalar implicature that seems to accompany nwukwu-na in some contexts.

(33) John-un nwukwu-na man-ess-ta. J.-top nwukwu-NA meet-pst-decl. ‘John met anyone regardless of who he/she is.’

• Implicature of (33): John met even the least attractive or interesting person, i.e., the lowest individual on the scale.

• Under the present analysis, this implicature is expected because indifference can generate a scalar interpretation (but not the other way around).

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Comparison with existing accounts

• Y. Lee (1999): In spirit, it’s very similar to the proposed analysis.

Core idea:

– The wh indeterminate denotes an open set of individuals.

– The semantics of -na involves “a choice on a scale.”

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Problems with Y. Lee (1999)

• Not every nwukwu-na carries such a scalar implicature; it’s more about indifference.

• The analysis is not compositional: it doesn’t say much about how the semantics of an indeterminate pronoun and that of –na combine together to produce the FC effects.

• Also, it doesn’t say where exactly the universal quantificational reading that accompanies nwukwu-na originates from. In fact, it explicitly argues that the Univ. QF doesn’t come from –na.

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Choi (2005)

• -na is a typical logical disjunction marker.

• Each sentence that contains nwukwu-na or amwu-na contains an implicit buletic modal operator that quantifies over the sentential subject’s desire worlds.

• This operator takes scope over the disjunction, so when it applies distributively over the disjunction, the sentence ends up having an indefinite conjunction.

• Opbl (P or Q) = Opbl P and Opbl Q.

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Problems with Choi (2005)

• It fails to derive the indifference reading.

• Doesn’t say exactly what is responsible for the presence of the buletic modal operator in the sentence.

• Also, it can’t derive speaker-oriented indifference readings.

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Remaining issues

• Issue 1: How to derive the existential quantificational readings of amwu-na phrases.

• Problem: Under the proposed analysis, -na is a universal quantifier over choice functions that are introduced the mention of a FC item. This incorrectly predicts that amwu-na will also have universal readings only. (See appendix for some possible lines to pursue.)

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Remaining issue 2

• How to ensure that the free individual variable inside a CF introduced by the mention of nwukwu gets bound either by the speaker or by the sentential subject.

• What produces which reading and why?

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Remaining issue 3• What do Korean facts tell us about FC across languages?

For instance, what about English?:

• In the literature, it’s been noted that any NPs and wh-ever expressions share many properties (von Fintel 2000, Horn 2000):

(34) I can meet with anyone who’s willing to meet with me.(35) I can meet with whoever is willing to meet with me.

• Whatever in (35) looks a lot like nwukwu-na.

• Would it be possible to apply the proposed analysis of nwukwu-na to whoever (or whatever)?

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Questions on parsing

• According to the proposed analysis, apparent logical connectives such as –na in Korean behave like some sort of a pragmatic quantifier whose domain is formed based on the speaker’s or subject’s attitudes.

• These operators presumably come into play after the pure semantic computation is complete.

– How are these operators represented in the computational system that interprets human language?

– How does the parser recognize them? Are they marked differently than ordinary quantifiers?

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Summary and Conclusion

• FC refers to a phenomenon in which the truth of a sentence is guaranteed regardless of the choice of an individual at issue.

• Korean provides a nice window into the ingredients for FC:

– The FC items consist of an indeterminate pronoun nwukwu and an apparent disjunction marker –na.

– Together, they produce universal quantification over ways of choosing an individual from a contextually salient set.

• If correct, the proposed analysis suggests that, across languages, FC effects are derived compositionally via the intriguing interactions between an indeterminate pronoun, a silent choice function, and a pragmatic quantifier over choice functions.

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Appendix

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How to derive existential readings of amwu-na?

• A possible rendition of the proposal: depending on the type of its argument, -na can be either a universal quantifier or an existential quantifier.

• When it occurs with nwukwu or a potentially [+wh] pronoun, it gets interpreted as a universal Q; when it occurs with amwu or a [-wh] pronoun, it gets interpreted as an existential Q.

• But this idea isn’t so attractive, because the semantics of -na changes rather dramatically depending on what it combines with.

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A better solution?

• Perhaps we could attend to the fact that nwukwu can be a question word with the [+wh] feature on it, but amwu cannot be a question word?

• The idea: What makes -na a universal quantifier is the [+wh] feature on nwukwu.

– na is normally just disjunction or existential quantifier but [+ wh] denotes an maximalizing or exhaustive operator.

– Since maximalizers are anti-additive, when [+wh] combines with disjunction, it turns it into conjunction, thereby yielding universal quantification.

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Another possible idea

• Nwukwu is a true indeterminate pronoun which denotes a Hamblin set of individuals, but amwu is a true indefinite pronoun whose core meaning has to do with domain-widening in the sense of Kadmon and Landman (1993).

• So the two FC items might require slight different treatments.

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Another remaining issue

• How to deal with Korean NPIs, which are made up of an indeterminate pronoun plus conjunctive marker –to, which means ‘also/even/and’: (i) nwukwu-to; (ii) amwu-to.

• NPIs carry scalar implicatures, i.e., the even the lowest guy on the scale reading, as shown earlier.

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• Where do these implicatures come from in the case of nwukwu-to or amwu-to?

The implicatures will have to come from the particle –to, since we would want to maintain that the pronouns only provides a set of individuals to which a CF can apply.

If -to triggers the scalar implicatures, what kind of quantification is involved in NPIs, both in Korean and across languages?