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Coherent contexts. Dynamic reasoning with aspectual information
Alice ter Meulen University of Geneva Friday, November 6, 1:15PM, MJH Rm 126 The dynamic semantics of aspectual adverbs first contrasts English, German and Dutch data, using respectively prosody, word order and composition to add subjective information to factual description. It is subsequently applied to dialogue, conditionals and interrogative contexts. The observed linguistic variety in aspectual quantification is analyzed in terms of focus and information structure. The temporal meaning of aspectual adverbs blends into meta-linguistic uses where generic background constraints may support the current context to create coherence, considering apparent counterexamples to be exceptions. This DRT semantics is claimed to provide adequate representational tools to account for the observed inferences, obviating tailor-made default inference or externally characterized 'normal' worlds. 
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