Documentation

Linglib.Studies.Gajewski2011

[Gaj11] — Licensing strong NPIs #

Gajewski, J. R. (2011). Licensing strong NPIs. Natural Language Semantics 19(2), 109–148.

The paper's central puzzle: the standard Zwarts/Ladusaw picture says strong NPIs (either, in weeks, punctual until) require an anti-additive licenser, whereas weak NPIs (any, ever) need only downward entailment. Once [vF99a] weakens DE to Strawson-DE, the natural extension is to weaken AA to Strawson-AA (SAA). But [Rul03] and [Gaj11] observe that SAA is too weak: vF's recalcitrants (only, conditionals, emotive factives) are all SAA (Appendix 1) yet do not license strong NPIs.

Gajewski proposes that strong NPIs are sensitive to the licenser's direct scalar implicatures, while weak NPIs are not. Strong NPIs need DE assessed on the meaning enriched with the licenser's direct implicature; AA was the wrong property — it only happened to coincide with "DE + scalar endpoint" (Conjecture 48).

What this study file covers #

§4 framework — both halves now in skeleton #

What's still genuinely deferred #

Demoted substrate — Intolerance + Karttunen-Peters Conditions #

Folded in from the former Entailment/Intolerance and Entailment/PresuppositionLicensing (single-consumer formalisations, per the anchoring rule): the Intolerance predicate ([Gaj11] eq. 80) and the Karttunen-Peters / Chierchia Conditions 1-4 (§4.1, §4.4) were consumed only by this study.

def Gajewski2011.IsTrivial {α : Type u_1} (f : Set αProp) :

A GQ-typed function is trivial if it is constantly true or constantly false.

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    def Gajewski2011.IsIntolerant {α : Type u_1} (f : Set αProp) :

    [Gaj11] eq. 80: a function f : Set α → Prop is Intolerant iff it is trivial, OR for every x, at most one of f x and f xᶜ holds.

    [Hor89]: Intolerant functions are "above the midpoint of their scale" — they cannot accept both a property and its complement.

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      [Gaj11] Appendix 2 (p. 143): an anti-additive GQ is Intolerant.

      Proof sketch (Gajewski's): suppose f is AA and not trivial. For arbitrary a, suppose f a = True and f aᶜ = True. Then f (a ∪ aᶜ) ↔ f a ∧ f aᶜ gives f Set.univ = True. Since AA implies DE, every y ⊆ Set.univ has f y = True — contradicting non-triviality. So either ¬f a or ¬f aᶜ.

      @[reducible, inline]
      abbrev Gajewski2011.KPOperator (W : Type u_1) :
      Type u_1

      A Karttunen-Peters operator: a function from an argument set to a presuppositional proposition (truth + presup). The presupposition may depend on the argument (per K&P 1979's heritage function).

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        def Gajewski2011.KPOperator.truth {W : Type u_1} (op : KPOperator W) :
        Set WSet W

        The truth-conditional projection of a K&P operator.

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          def Gajewski2011.KPOperator.opPresup {W : Type u_1} (op : KPOperator W) :
          Set WWProp

          The presuppositional projection of a K&P operator (parameterized by the argument).

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            def Gajewski2011.KPOperator.full {W : Type u_1} (op : KPOperator W) :
            Set WSet W

            The full meaning of a K&P operator: assertion and presupposition. What's checked for Condition 4 (strong NPI licensing).

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              [Gaj11] eq. 93: Condition 3 (weak NPI licensing).

              A K&P operator licenses weak NPIs in its argument position iff its truth-conditional projection is DE (Antitone) in the argument. The operator's own presupposition does NOT enter the licensing check — weak NPIs ignore the licenser's presupposition.

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                [Gaj11] eq. 94: Condition 4 (strong NPI licensing).

                A K&P operator licenses strong NPIs in its argument position iff assertion ∧ operator-presupposition is DE in the argument. The operator's presupposition CAN destroy DE-ness; if it does, the operator licenses weak but not strong NPIs.

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                  theorem Gajewski2011.condition3_iff_condition4_of_trivial_presup {W : Type u_1} (op : KPOperator W) (h : ∀ (arg : Set W) (w : W), (op arg).presup w) :

                  Trivially: an operator with no presupposition (always-True) makes Condition 3 and Condition 4 equivalent.

                  Conditions 1, 2 — the implicature-based licensing line #

                  Whereas Conditions 3, 4 (above) handle presuppositions via the K&P framework, Conditions 1, 2 (Gajewski eqs. 59, 66) handle scalar implicatures via [Chi04]'s O-operator and alternative-set machinery. The two frameworks make parallel predictions for only: weak NPIs licensed (Condition 1 / Condition 3) but strong NPIs blocked (Condition 2 / Condition 4) — once the implicatures (Cond 1/2) or presuppositions (Cond 3/4) of the licenser are factored in, DE-ness is destroyed.

                  The substrate's O-operator is Exhaustification.exhMW (Spector 2016, based on minimal worlds) or its equivalent exhIE (innocent-exclusion based, agree under closure under conjunction; see Spector Theorem 9). We use exhMW because its trivial-ALT case is exhMW ∅ φ = φ cleanly, which simplifies the empty-implicature reduction.

                  Gajewski's ALT vs ALT-1 distinction (eqs. 54, 55) is encoded as two parameters to Condition 2: the standard alternative set ALT and the restricted ALT-1 (Chierchia's "highest-scopal-item only").

                  def Gajewski2011.Condition1 {W : Type u_1} (op : Set WSet W) (alts : Set WSet (Set W)) :

                  [Gaj11] eq. 59: Condition 1 (weak NPI licensing).

                  Operator op licenses weak NPIs in its argument position iff O(op(γ), op(ALT(γ))) is DE in γ, where alts γ generates the alternative set against which op(γ) is exhaustified.

                  Exhaustification.exhMW plays the role of Gajewski's O(F, G).

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                    def Gajewski2011.Condition2 {W : Type u_1} (op : Set WSet W) (alts altsOne : Set WSet (Set W)) :

                    [Gaj11] eq. 66: Condition 2 (strong NPI licensing).

                    Adds a parallel DE check against ALT-1 — the restricted alternative set (Chierchia's "highest-scopal-item only", eq. 55). Strong NPIs are licensed iff both DE checks pass: O(op(γ), op(ALT(γ))) AND O(op(γ), op(ALT-1(γ))).

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                      theorem Gajewski2011.exhMW_empty_eq {W : Type u_1} (φ : Set W) :

                      Trivial-ALT lemma: with no alternatives, exhMW collapses to the prejacent. Spector 2016's minimality reduces to True when there are no alternatives to be minimal-with-respect-to.

                      theorem Gajewski2011.condition1_with_no_alts_iff_de {W : Type u_1} (op : Set WSet W) :
                      (Condition1 op fun (x : Set W) => ) Antitone op

                      Trivial-ALT bridge for Cond 1: Condition 1 with no alternatives reduces to classical DE.

                      theorem Gajewski2011.condition2_with_no_alts_iff_de {W : Type u_1} (op : Set WSet W) :
                      (Condition2 op (fun (x : Set W) => ) fun (x : Set W) => ) Antitone op

                      Trivial-ALT bridge for Cond 2: with no alternatives in either ALT or ALT-1, Condition 2 reduces to classical DE. The empirical discriminative power of Cond 2 vs Cond 1 only emerges with non-trivial ALT-1 (Chierchia's "highest-scopal-item only").

                      theorem Gajewski2011.all_conditions_reduce_to_DE_when_trivial {W : Type u_1} (op : KPOperator W) (hPresup : ∀ (arg : Set W) (w : W), (op arg).presup w) (hOpFnDE : Antitone op.truth) :
                      (Condition1 op.truth fun (x : Set W) => ) Condition3 op Condition4 op

                      Bridge to Conditions 3, 4: when op's K&P-form has no presupposition (so the operator is presupposition-free), Conditions 3 and 4 collapse, AND Condition 1 with no alternatives reduces to classical DE. Hence presuppositionless + alternative-free ⇒ all four Gajewski conditions reduce to classical DE.

                      This is the structural reason Gajewski's framework matters: both presuppositions (the K&P side) AND implicatures (the Chierchia side) can destroy DE-ness in the licensee position; the four conditions track which side does what.

                      §1 Background — recapitulating Zwarts and von Fintel #

                      The paper's §2 establishes:

                      §3.3 The puzzle — Strawson-AA is too weak #

                      [Gaj11] (following [Rul03] and [Gaj05]) observes that all of vF's Strawson-DE recalcitrants are also Strawson-AA. The Appendix 1 proofs are formalized in StrawsonEntailment.lean; we cite them here as paper-anchored theorems.

                      (37) Only-Bill (A ∨ B) ⇒_S Only-Bill A ∧ Only-Bill B. (38) Only-Bill A ∧ Only-Bill B ⇒_S Only-Bill (A ∨ B). [Both directions go through under Strawson entailment; hence only is SAA.] (p. 120)

                      Yet strong NPIs are ungrammatical under all of these SAA operators (exs. 39-41):

                      (39) a. Only John has ever seen anyone. ✓ b. *Only John has seen Mary in weeks. c. *Only John likes pancakes, either. d. *Only John arrived until his birthday. (40) a. If Bill has ever seen anyone, he is keeping it a secret. ✓ b. *If Bill has seen Mary in weeks, he is keeping it a secret. c. *If Bill likes pancakes, either, he is keeping it a secret. d. *If Bill arrived until Friday, he is keeping it a secret. (41) a. Mary is sorry that she ever talked to anyone. ✓ b. *Mary is sorry that she has talked to Bill in weeks. c. *Mary is sorry that she likes pancakes, either. d. *Mary is sorry that she arrived until Friday.

                      Conclusion (p. 121): "Strawson anti-additivity is too weak to account for the distribution of strong NPIs. Hence it appears that presuppositions must be taken into account when we assess the licensing of strong NPIs."

                      The 2x2 puzzle (eq. 44):

                             | Standard entailment | Strawson entailment
                       DE    | ???                 | Weak NPIs
                       AA    | Strong NPIs         | ???
                      

                      vF's Strawson move correctly characterizes weak NPIs but the natural extension to AA does not characterize strong NPIs. Gajewski proposes the single distinction is whether the NPI attends to the licenser's non-truth-conditional meaning.

                      Substrate index #

                      The four SAA proofs live in Semantics/Entailment/StrawsonEntailment.lean:

                      The collected Gajewski headline: all four vF-recalcitrant operators come out Strawson-AA, yet (per exs. 39-41) none license strong NPIs. The substrate proves SAA; the empirical "no strong-NPI licensing" side is documented in the docstrings above (it requires a strong-NPI licensing predicate Gajewski's full theory builds compositionally).

                      §4.3 The Intolerance-based intermediate category (eq. 80, Appendix 2) #

                      For readers unconvinced by the §4 implicature-based account, Gajewski offers an alternative: DE + Intolerant as an intermediate category between DE and AA. The conjecture (eq. 84): AA ⊂ DE + Intolerant ⊂ DE.

                      Intolerance comes from [Hor89]: a function is intolerant if it does not map both x and xᶜ to truth — i.e., it "locates" itself on one side of the midpoint of its scale.

                      The substrate-level definitions (IsTrivial, IsIntolerant; GQ-typed anti-additivity and DE-ness are the Set α → Prop instances of IsAntiAdditive and Antitone) and the Appendix 2 proof (antiAdditive_implies_intolerant) are defined above (demoted substrate).

                      The reverse strict inclusion (AA ⊊ DE + Intolerant, ex. 84) — i.e. exhibiting a DE+Intolerant function that is not AA — is asserted by Gajewski but not proved; would need a witness function. Open.

                      Re-export the substrate Appendix 2 result for paper-citation indexing.

                      §4.1 Conjecture (eq. 48): DE scalar item is AA iff endpoint of scale #

                      [Gaj11] (p. 123): "A DE scalar item is AA iff it is the endpoint of its scale."

                      This is the load-bearing conjecture that lets Gajewski reduce strong-NPI licensing to "DE + endpoint-of-scale." no NP is the strong endpoint of the negative-existential scale ⟨no, few, not many, ...⟩; few NP is just above no NP, so on context-dependent scale truncation few NP can act as the endpoint — explaining why few sometimes licenses strong NPIs (exs. 71-73, contra Zwarts):

                      (71) He was one of the few dogs I'd met in years that I really liked. (72) Few Americans have ever been to Spain. Few Canadians have either. (73) He invited few people until he knew she liked them.

                      Formalizing the conjecture requires scale-side machinery (Horn scales, context-dependent truncation à la Chierchia 2004 axiom (i)). Deferred.

                      Cross-framework relationships #

                      §4.4 Karttunen-Peters Conditions 3, 4 applied to only #

                      [Gaj11] eqs. 93-94 (p. 134) state two licensing conditions in the K&P two-dimensional ⟨truth, presup⟩ framework:

                      The predicates Condition3 and Condition4 are defined above (demoted substrate). Here we apply them to only and verify the empirical match: weak NPIs licensed (Condition 3 ✓), strong NPIs blocked (Condition 4 ✗).

                      The K&P operator for only x: assertion = "no y ≠ x has scope", presupposition = "some y has x and scope" (Horn 1996). Built directly from onlyPartialProp in StrawsonEntailment.

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                        Ex. 19a (p. 115) confirmed: only satisfies Condition 3 — its truth-conditional assertion is classically DE in the scope.

                        Proof: (∀ y, x y ∨ ¬ q y) → (∀ y, x y ∨ ¬ p y) for any p ⊆ q — if q y fails, so does p y (contrapositive of p ⊆ q).

                        Ex. 19a + ex. 39b (pp. 115, 120): only does NOT satisfy Condition 4 — the existence presupposition of only is upward entailing in scope, so the conjunction assertion ∧ presupposition is not DE.

                        Witness: p = ∅, q = {w0}, focus on w0. At w0:

                        • (onlyKP (· = w0)).full q w0 holds: assertion holds (only w0 ∈ q), presup holds (∃ y = w0 ∧ q w0).
                        • (onlyKP (· = w0)).full p w0 fails: presup ∃ y, y = w0 ∧ p y requires p w0, which is false (p = ∅).
                        • DE would require: q ⊇ p ∧ full q w0 → full p w0. Fails.

                        [Gaj11] headline (K&P/presupposition side): only is the canonical case of "Condition 3 ✓ but Condition 4 ✗" — licenses weak NPIs (any, ever) but blocks strong NPIs (either, in weeks, until), because its existence presupposition is UE in the scope and destroys DE-ness of the conjunction.

                        §4.1 Conditions 1, 2 — the implicature side (Chierchia line) #

                        Parallel to §4.4's K&P-based Conditions 3, 4: Conditions 1, 2 (eqs. 59, 66) handle the implicature side via Spector 2016's exhMW operator, treated as Gajewski's O(F, G). The substrate substrate's Exhaustification.exhMW lives in Semantics/Exhaustification/Operators/Basic.lean.

                        The substrate's trivial-ALT bridge theorem (condition1_with_no_alts_iff_de) shows: with no alternatives, Condition 1 reduces to classical DE. So only (whose assertion is classically DE) satisfies Condition 1 with empty alternatives — parallel to its satisfaction of Condition 3.

                        The full Gajewski analysis under Conditions 1, 2 requires non-trivial ALT-1 sets (Chierchia's "highest-scopal-item only", eq. 55). The [Chi06] (file Studies/Chierchia2006.lean) and [Chi13] formalizations would supply concrete ALT-1 generators. Concrete only proofs under Conditions 1, 2 with non-trivial ALTs are deferred until that infrastructure is wired in.

                        only's assertion satisfies Condition 1 with empty alternatives (which reduces to classical DE — and we proved only_satisfies_condition3 ≡ classical DE on the assertion). This is the implicature-side parallel of only_satisfies_condition3.

                        only's assertion satisfies Condition 2 with no alternatives in either ALT or ALT-1 (degenerate trivial case — both DE checks pass because they collapse to classical DE on the assertion).

                        The substrate proves this is the trivial limit of Condition 2. The empirical Gajewski result — that only fails Condition 2 on the attested ALT-1 (Chierchia's "highest-scopal-item only" alternatives generated from the strong NPI in scope) — requires a scalar-alternative generator that lives in Studies/Chierchia2006.lean's PSIProfile framework or equivalent. Wiring up a concrete ALT-1 generator that demonstrates the empirical Cond 2 failure for only is deferred to a follow-up study file (likely an extension of Chierchia2006.lean or a new Chierchia2013.lean since the relevant framework is Chierchia 2013 ch. 3).

                        Hoeksema S-comparative — the positive test case #

                        [Hoe83]'s S-comparative is classically anti-additive (Semantics/Degree/Comparative.lean::gtOverSet_isAntiAdditive), hence by antiAdditive_implies_strawsonAA it is also Strawson-AA. This is the positive test for Gajewski's framework: an AA operator licenses strong NPIs (Hoeksema's data confirms — "Mary is taller than anyone is", "in years"-style strong NPIs grammatical in than-S comparatives). Contrast vF's recalcitrants which are SAA-but-not-AA and hence don't license strong NPIs.

                        theorem Gajewski2011.bridge_hoeksema_gtOverSet_strawsonAA {Entity : Type u_1} {D : Type u_2} [Preorder D] (μ : EntityD) (defined : Set DEntityProp) :

                        Strong-NPI registry consistency #

                        Gajewski's headline empirical claim: strong NPIs are ungrammatical under operators that are only Strawson-DE/SAA (not classically AA). The Fragment registry encodes this through:

                        Gajewski's prediction: no strong NPI lists any Strawson-only context. The substrate makes this decide-checkable.

                        [Gaj11] headline made registry-checkable: no strong NPI in the English Fragment is licensed in any Strawson-only context. The four enumerated strong NPIs all restrict their licensing to classical-AA contexts (.negation, .nobody, .withoutClause), excluding .onlyFocus, .adversative, .sinceTemporal, .superlative.

                        The registry agrees with signature-derived licensing on the strong NPIs: every context a strong NPI lists supplies anti-additive strength (strengthSufficient of the row's Strawson DE strength against the item's derived [Zwa98] class).