We are happy to announce another talk by Janek Guerrini (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium.
The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301.
If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.
Date: December 19, 2024
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.
Title: Similatives as inherent generics
Abstract:
In this paper, I give an account of constructions expressing similarity such as like John and like a lawyer. The main point of the paper is that in like a lawyer, the indefinite receives a generic interpretation, which explains why under its most available reading, John looks like a lawyer is equivalent to John looks like a typical lawyer. However, this indefinite is generic in a surprising way. Generic quantification is standardly thought to be brought about by a silent quantificational adverb, Gen, bearing a meaning akin to generally (see e.g. Krifka et al. 1995). It is therefore expected, on the standard picture, that an indefinite that can receive generic interpretations should also be bound by explicit quantificational adverbs, as for instance in a bird flies ≈ typical birds fly, parallel to a bird rarely flies ≈ few birds fly. However, indefinites embedded by like escape this generalization: John looks like a lawyer ≈ John looks like a typical lawyer, but John rarely looks like a lawyer ≠ John looks like few lawyers. To solve this puzzle, I propose that like comes with a generic quantifier that is lexically hard-wired in its lexical entry, and show how this makes a number of surprising predictions which all turn out to be correct. Along the way, I also analyze properties of like that are not necessarily linked to genericity, mainly: (i) it is a gradable expression over a closed scale, since it supports proportional modification such as in the DNA of humans is 99% like that of chimps. (ii) It can be modified both by scalar modifiers like much and by with respect to phrases like with respect to size, in similar but non-identical ways. (iii) It gives rise to homogeneity (and non-maximality; see Križ 2015, a.o.), as John is like Mary suggests they share all relevant properties, while John isn’t like Mary suggests they share none of them.