Already : just scalarity

The particles still and already are commonly thought of and analyzed as particles that mirror each other. The particle still has been robustly argued to have an additive presupposition in the same vein as particles like too. However, I argue that a dual semantics for already, as all previous accounts attempt to implement, is untenable, motivated by asymmetries between the two particles. Instead, I propose that already has no additive presupposition but instead an even-style scalar 'likelihood' presupposition enriched with an exhaustivity operator. Such an analysis offers empirical improvements over previous analyses, notably in its ability to directly capture the earlier-than-expected inference conveyed by already.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Zhu, Hanzhi,S.M.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Roger Schwarzschild.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129116

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/129116