Partee (2010): Privative Adjectives: Subsective plus Coercion #

[Par10]

[Par10] argues no adjectives are genuinely [Kam75]-privative: apparent privatives are subsective after NVP-driven noun-coercion ([KP95] formulae 18, 20). Polish NP-splitting data from [Now00] is the empirical wedge.

Main results #

isPrivative_no_LicensedCoercion: Kamp-privative adjectives admit no LicensedCoercion — the formal obstruction motivating reanalysis.
fakeReanalysis : ParteeReanalysis Kamp1975.fakeAdj — the constructive reanalysis of Kamp's paradigm privative as subsective- after-coercion.
Witness bridges from Kamp's grayAdj/skillfulAdj/allegedAdj to RevisedClass cases.

source

theorem Partee2010.isPrivative_no_LicensedCoercion {W : Type u_1} {E : Type u_2} {adj : Semantics.Gradability.Classification.AdjMeaning W E} (hp : Semantics.Gradability.Classification.isPrivative adj) (N : Semantics.Gradability.Classification.Property W E) (w : W) :

IsEmpty (Semantics.Composition.Coercion.LicensedCoercion N adj w)

Kamp-privative adjectives admit no NVP-licensed coercion. For any shift, NVP requires a positive witness x with adj shift w x ∧ shift w x; privativity forces adj shift w x → ¬ shift w x.

source

theorem Partee2010.fakeAdj_no_LicensedCoercion (N : Semantics.Gradability.Classification.Property Kamp1975.W2 Kamp1975.E3) (w : Kamp1975.W2) :

IsEmpty (Semantics.Composition.Coercion.LicensedCoercion N Kamp1975.fakeAdj w)

Specialisation to Kamp1975.fakeAdj.

source

def Partee2010.fakeReanalysis :

Semantics.Composition.Coercion.ParteeReanalysis Kamp1975.fakeAdj

Reanalysis of Kamp1975.fakeAdj: widen N by ∨ with fakeAdj N, take the reanalysed meaning to be membership-in-N-and-of- fake-type. Inert hypothesis is vacuously satisfied because the direct application of fakeAdj N to entities in N is empty (privative).

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