A study on multiple interpretations of frequency adverbs in Japanese

Proceedings of PACLIC 19, the 19th Asia-Pacific Conference on Language, Information and Computation. A study on multiple interpretations of frequency adverbs in Japanese Tomoaki Ozawa Graduate School of International Cultural Studies Tohoku University Kawauchi 41, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi 980-8576, Japan tomoaki@linguist.jp Hiroyuki Nishina Department of Cybernetics and Cognitive Sciences, Saitama University Shimo-okubo 255, Sakura-ku, Saitama-shi, Saitama 338-8570, Japan nishina@ceres.me.ics.saitama-u.ac.jp Kei Yoshimoto Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University Kawauchi 41, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi 980-8576, Japan kei@insc.tohoku.ac.jp Shigeru Sato Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University Kawauchi 41, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi 980-8576, Japan satos@mail.tains.tohoku.ac.jp Abstract This paper is concerned with frequency adverbs in Japanese. Many linguists have pointed out that frequency statements and generic sentences have multiple readings when they co-occur with a kind of adjuncts. More often than not, the interpretation is complicated by the ambiguity of temporal adverbs and the context-dependent nature of the way operator works. In fact, frequency adverbs in Japanese cause at least four readings. We resolve this ambiguity by taking into account two factors. The first one is the syntactic structure at which a temporal adverb is located: it can stand for either an interval during which events are iterated or a temporal point for a single event. Second, we illustrate how the restriction and scope, the two arguments of the frequency operator, are decided depending on the context. Lastly, we show how semantic formulas for multiple interpretations are derived as a result of combining these factors. 1. Introduction Given that the frequency adverb can be taken as a quantifier over an event, it can easily be seen that many of sentences with this kind of adjunct are ambiguous. As shown in the following section, however, the frequency adverb in Japanese sentences cause much more ambiguity than one can expect. We address this issue which has evaded researchers’ attention so far. The approach we adopt is two-fold. First, we investigate the ambiguity of temporal adverbs in terms of modification of a duration during which events are repeated or a temporal point corresponding to a single event. Second, we try to account for the remaining part of the ambiguity by assuming that the restriction and scope of the frequency operator is introduced by context, more specifically by the focus structure. We show how these factors combine to produce semantic formulas assigned to multiply ambiguous sentences with frequency adverbs. 2. Multiply ambiguous sentences with frequency adverbs In this section, we take up examples from Japanese sentences with frequency adverbs and show how they are multiply ambiguous. Let us see sentence (1). This is ambiguous in four ways. C: Holidays B:Restriction A:Nuclear Scope [A]: A set of events Taro saw a movie [B]: A set of felicity situations with respect to Taro saw a movie Figure 1 C: Felicity situations with respect to iteration-event Taro saw a movie B:Restriction A:Nuclear Scope [A]: A set of events X's occur on holiday [B]: A set of events Taro saw a movie Figure 2 C: Felicity situations with respect …

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