Examines negative polarity items in English and Korean and argues that a consistent explanation emerges if certain assumptions are entertained about indefiniteness and concession by arbitrary choice. The article maintains that the logical consequences of monotone decreasingness is transparent with strong negatives but less so with weaker ones. (18…

Presents a contrastive study of connectives such as "in case that,""provided that," and "unless" focusing on the semantic properties of these items and their semantic and pragmatic equivalence across English and Italian. The article emphasizes that in its approach, pragmatic equivalence is strictly related to semantic…

Investigates the differences in form and meaning between the Dutch and English passives, attributing the differences to the passive auxiliaries that signal a process and a state for Dutch and English. The article is aided by the framework of Langacker's (1991) cognitive grammar. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Discusses the relative merits of feature versus model based semantics for the interpretation of verb phrases in English, French, and German. The article concludes that the simplicity afforded by features is offset by the depth of analysis achieved with event models that are additionally able to support a sophisticated approach to machine…

Discusses the ways languages of Europe render the "given"-"new" distinction on the basis of data collected by means of presenting speakers of various languages with the task of reconstructing a route on a map. The article raises questions about the nature of "wh"-pronouns in English and about what is shared by these…