Linguistics Series Seminar: Roumyana Pancheva (UCSC)

Roumyana Pancheva, joint work with Artemis Alexiadou and Sabine Iatridou

A superlative sentence like (1) can have two types of readings, absolute and relative.

1. Miranda climbed the highest mountain.

Common to both readings is the claim that Miranda climbed a mountain that is higher than any other relevant mountain. The two readings differ in what counts as a relevant mountain. Partly, this is determined by context.

Suppose we are discussing what Miranda did on her trip to Europe. In the absence of any further contextual details, (1) would receive an absolute interpretation, with verifying conditions as in (2a). In a more elaborate context where Miranda and her friends went on a trip to Europe and they each climbed a mountain there, (1) would receive a relative interpretation; an example situation that makes (1) true on this reading is in (2b).

2. a. Miranda climbed Mount Elbrus, which, at 5,642 meters, is the highest in Europe. (absolute)
    b. Miranda had the best achievement: she climbed Mount Olympus in Greece, which is 2,918 meters tall, and no one else climbed a mountain as high or higher. (relative)

A key question is whether context alone resolves how (1) is interpreted, or whether different logical forms underlie the two readings. Empirically, the current talk enriches this debate with data from Bulgarian and Greek, with focus on the effect of definiteness marking in superlative noun phrases. On the theoretical side, we offer support for the view that the absolute/relative distinction is not solely due to contextual resolution but is a case of a semantic ambiguity, centered on how definite-marked DPs are interpreted.

We examine three environments in which definite DPs in the two languages appear: (i) polydefiniteness, i.e., the multiple expression of definite marking within a DP, (ii) clitic doubling, and (iii) clitic left dislocation, and show that they preclude relative readings. This is in contrast to monodefinites, i.e., DPs that are not polydefinite, clitic doubled or clitic left dislocated, which allow both absolute and relative readings, just like the English (1). Our empirical findings support the semantic ambiguity view: on the absolute reading, the superlative DP is interpreted as a definite description, referring to a unique individual, while on the relative reading it is interpreted as a non-referential indefinite, despite the presence of the definite article.