Mini-course: Numerical expressions in natural language

Time: 09:00 to  15:00 Ngày 31/08/2016

Venue/Location: B4-705

Speaker: Andreas Haida

Content:

The numerical expressions "three", "three or more", and "more than two" have commonalities in meaning. This can be seen from the fact that the sentences in (i-a), (i-b), and (i-c), in which these expressions occur, are naturally understood to express the same promise.

(i)
a. If you solve three of the problems on this list, you'll get a prize
b. If you solve at least three of the problems on this list, you'll get a prize
c. If you solve more than two of the problems on this list, you'll get a prize

In other sentences, however, they seem to differ in meaning from each other as the following observations show. The sentence in (ii-a), in contrast to the sentences in (ii-b) and (ii-c), is understood to express that John owns exactly three cars. Furthermore, by using sentence (ii-b) a speaker implies that he or she is not certain about how many cars John owns. Clearly, the use of (ii-a) does not imply speaker uncertainty and neither does (ii-c). The latter is evidenced by the fact that (ii-c) can be felicitously continued with "... he has four cars to be exact" while this continuation in infelicitous with (ii-b).

(ii)
a. John owns three cars
b. John owns at least three cars
c. John owns more than two cars

We will discuss these and related observations and show to account for them without making arbitrary assumptions such as 'the expression "at least three" has an uncertainty meaning component unless it occurs in the antecedent of a conditional sentence such as (i-b).'