[lingtalks] Ivano Caponigro's Job Talk

[Pamela Estrada]

Hello,

Attached is the abstract and information regarding Ivano Caponigro's Job Talk.

Thanks!
Pamela.

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THE UCSD Department of Linguistics is pleased to announce

A TALK BY IVANO CAPONIGRO

Universita degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Wednesday, February 15, 2006
1:45pm - 3:15pm
TV Studio - McGill Hall Room 2148
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On the semantics of wh words:
Evidence from free relatives and other wh constructions crosslinguistically

In this talk, I present some aspects of my ongoing research project 
on the semantics of wh-constructions and their wh-words across 
languages. I start by discussing some of the problems with current 
approaches to the semantics of wh words and how a crosslinguistic 
investigation can avoid them. Then, I focus on non interrogative wh 
constructions known as free relatives. I look at their semantic 
behavior across more than twenty languages from three language 
families and conclude that, unlike what has been suggested, phrasal 
wh words like who, what, where, when, and how and their equivalent 
across those languages do not behave like universally or 
existentially quantified expressions nor do they lexically encode 
maximality. Wh-words are set restrictors: they apply to a set and 
return a subset (e.g. who applies to a set of entities and returns 
just the animate ones). Finally, I show how these conclusions can be 
extended to other wh constructions like wh interrogatives, 
pseudoclefts, and rhetorical questions.


Pamela Estrada

UCSD Department of Linguistics
Student Worker, Chair's Office
(858)534-3600
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