Picky predicates: why believe doesn't like interrogative complements, and other puzzles

Open Access
Authors
Publication date 06-2019
Journal Natural Language Semantics
Volume | Issue number 27 | 2
Pages (from-to) 95-134
Organisations
  • Interfacultary Research - Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC)
Abstract
It is a long-standing puzzle why predicates like believe embed declarative but not interrogative complements (e.g., Bill believes that/*whether Mary left) and why predicates like wonder embed interrogative but not declarative complements (e.g., Bill wonders whether/*that Mary left). This paper shows how the selectional restrictions of a range of predicates (neg-raising predicates like believe, truth-evaluating predicates like be true, inquisitive predicates like wonder, and predicates of dependency like depend on) can be derived from semantic assumptions that can be independently motivated.
Document type Article
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-019-09152-9
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