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Publications

Submitted/under revision

Scott AnderBois and Maksymilian Dąbkowski. under revision. The semantics and expression of apprehensional modality. Under revisions at Language and Linguistics Compass
[ preprint link ]

To appear

Chelsea Sanker and Scott AnderBois. to appear. Reconstruction of nasality and other aspects of A'ingae phonology. To appear at Cadernos de Etnolingüística
[ preprint pdf ]
Maksymilian Dąbkowski and Scott AnderBois. to appear. The apprehensional domain in A'ingae (Cofán). Invited contribution to untitled volume on apprehensional constructions Martina Faller, Eva Schultze-Berndt, and Marine Vuillermet (eds), Lang Sci Press.
[ preprint pdf ]

2024

Scott AnderBois, Grant Armstrong, and Edber Dzidz Yam. 2024. Los preverbos en maya yucateco (Preverbs in Yucatec Maya). Cuadernos de Colegio de México 11(e309): 1-57
[ abstract | bib | open access link ]

In linguistic descriptions of Mayan languages there is often a class of adverbs that exhibit exceptional behavior called "dependent adverbs", "incorporated adverbs" or "clitic adverbs", among other names. Their most notable characteristic is that they appear between the verb root and the set A bound pronoun or aspect marker in the clause. The objective of this paper is to present an argument in favor of the idea that, in Yucatec Maya, this adverbial class should be treated as its own lexical category that we label preverbs, which is distinct from adverbs. We present morphological, syntactic and semantic evidence in favor of distinguishing preverbs from both adverbs and from incorporated roots in compound verbal stems. Finally, we provide a detailed semantic classification of preverbs and propose a syntactic analysis that explains their grammatical properties.
```
@article{ArmstrongAnderBoisDzidzYam24,
  Title = {Los preverbos en maya yucateco},
  Author = {Grant Armstrong and Scott AnderBois and Edber Dzidz Yam},
  Year = {2024},
  journal = {Cuadernos de Lingüística de El Colegio de México},
  volume={11},
  number={e309},
  pages={1-57},
  doi={doi.org/10.24201/clecm.v11i00.309}
}
```
Carol-Rose Little, Scott AnderBois, and Jessica Coon. 2024. Type-shifters in headless relative clauses. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory online first
[ abstract | bib | open access link ]

Research on the (in)definiteness of bare nouns has developed various proposals regarding which type-shifters exist in human language and which principles are needed to govern their distribution (Carlson 1977; Partee 1987; Chierchia 1998; Dayal 2004; i.a.). At the same time, literature on headless relative clauses (HRCs), primarily focusing on free relatives (FRs) in Indo-European languages, has also developed type-shifting principles (Jacobson 1995; Caponigro 2003, 2004). The type-shifting principles from the FR literature, however, are fundamentally different than those found in proposals for bare nouns. Here, we present case studies from two Mayan languages which diverge from one another in the behavior of bare nouns, and which possess several different kinds of headless relative clauses.
```
@article{LittleAnderBoisCoon24,
  Title = {Type-shifters in headless relative clauses},
  Author = {Carol-Rose Little, Scott AnderBois, and Jessica Coon},
  Year = {2024},
  journal = {Natural Language and Linguistic Theory},
  doi={doi.org/10.1007/s11049-023-09595-0}
}
```
Scott AnderBois, Grant Armstrong, and Edber Dzidz Yam. 2024. Yucatec Maya preverbs and the semantic typology of adverbs. Proceedings of Semantics of Understudied Languages of the Americas (SULA) 12 pp.1-16
[ abstract | bib | preprint pdf | link ]

Adverbs in Yucatec Maya (YM) exhibit a set of properties familiar from languages like English and Spanish: characteristic derivational morphology (e.g. Eng. -ly, Sp. -mente, YM -il), syntactically flexible positioning, and semantic heterogeneity with meanings ranging from temporal, locative, domain, quantificational, to manner adverbs. In this paper, we explore a distinct lexical class of adverb-like elements which we dub preverbs. In AnderBois et al. (2021), we distinguish YM preverbs based on their unique morphosyntactic properties, most notably that they occur only in low positions adjacent to the verb root. Here we examine their semantics, arguing that they are restricted to 'verb-related' meanings in the classification of Maienborn & Schaefer and deriving this restriction by building on Schaefer's (2008) account of English and German manner adverbs.
```
@incollection{AnderBoisArmstrongDzidzYam24,
  Title = {Yucatec Maya preverbs and the semantic typology of adverbs},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois, Grant Armstrong, and Edber Dzidz Yam},
  Year = {2024},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of Semantics of Understudied Languages of the Americas (SULA) 12},
pages={1-16},
editor={Mariana Calderón-Corona and Polina Kasyanova and Eva Neu},
publisher={UMass GLSA}
}
```
Maksymilian Dąbkowski and Scott AnderBois. 2024. Rationale and precautioning clauses: Insights from A'ingae. Journal of Semantics. 40(2-3): 391-425
[ abstract | bib | preprint link | link ]

We describe and analyze the semantics of rationale and precautioning clauses (i.e. in order to- and lest-clauses) through a detailed case study of two operators in A'ingae: the infinitive -ye 'inf' and the apprehensional -sa'ne 'appr.' We provide a new account of rationale semantics and the first formal account of precautioning semantics. We propose that in structures such as [ p [(in order) to q ]] or [ p [q-ye]], the rationale operator (underlined) encodes modal semantics where the goal worlds of the actor responsible for p achieve q. In structures such as [ p [lest q ]] or [ p [ q-sa'ne]], the precautioning operator encodes modal semantics where the actor's goal worlds avoid a recoverable situation r which entails q. We observe and account for three apparent asymmetries within the domain of rationale and precautioning semantics, which we dub precautioning semantics asymmetry, rationale polarity asymmetry, and precautioning encoding asymmetry. We thus elucidate the relation between rationale and precautioning clauses and make substantial predictions with respect to the cross-linguistic inventories of rationale and precautioning operators.
```
@article{DabkowskiAnderBois24,
  Title = {Rationale and precautioning clauses: Insights from A'ingae},
  Author = {Maksymilian Dąbkowski and Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2024},
  journal = {Journal of Semantics},
pages={391-425},
volume={40},
number={2-3}
}
```

2023

Scott AnderBois, Daniel Altshuler, and Wilson Silva. 2023. The forms and functions of switch reference in A'ingae. Languages - an MDPI Journal 8(2), 137
[ abstract | bib | link ]

This paper examines switch reference (SR) in A'ingae, an understudied isolate language from Amazonian Ecuador. We present a theoretically informed survey of SR, identifying three distinct uses of switch reference: in clause chaining, adverbial clauses, and so-called 'bridging' clause linkage. We describe the syntactic and semantic properties of each use in detail, the first such description for A'ingae, showing that the three constructions differ in important ways. While leaving a full syntactic analysis to future work, we argue that these disparate properties preclude a syntactic account that unifies these three constructions to the exclusion of other environments without SR. Conversely, while a full semantic account is also left to future work, we suggest that a unified semantic account in terms of discourse coherence principles appears more promising. In particular, we propose that switch reference in A'ingae occurs in all and only the constructions that are semantically restricted to non-structuring coordinating coherence relations in the sense of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory.
```
@article{AnderBoisAltshulerSilva23,
  Title = {The forms and functions of switch reference in {A}'ingae},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois, Daniel Altshuler, and Wilson Silva},
  Year = {2023},
  journal = {Languages},
  volume={8},
  number={2},
  pages={137},
  doi={doi.org/10.3390/languages8020137}
}
```
Holly Zheng and Scott AnderBois. 2023. Definiteness in A'ingae and its implications for pragmatic competition. Formal Approaches to Languages of South America Andrés Saab and Cilene Rodrigues (eds), Springer.
[ abstract | bib | preprint pdf | link ]

The expression of indefiniteness and definiteness presents great cross-linguistic diversity, which makes the task of establishing semantic/pragmatic framework that generalizes over all different definiteness patterns an important challenge for semantic theory. In this chapter, we focus on the expression of definiteness in A'ingae, an underdocumented and endangered language isolate of Amazonian Ecuador and Colombia. The overall definiteness pattern of the language is: bare noun phrases can be used in all of indefinite, unique, and anaphoric definite noun phrases, while a dedicated anaphoric marker of A'ingae, tsa, can only be used in anaphoric definites. This lack of complementarity between the unique and anaphoric forms in A'ingae challenges previously proposed frameworks that rely on pragmatic competition and therefore predict a strict division between the unique and anaphoric forms in other languages. We propose that an alternative semantic-based framework, not pragmatic-based, is necessary to synchronically capture different definiteness patterns cross-linguistically.
```
@incollection{ZhengAnderBois23,
  Title = {Definiteness in {A}'ingae and its implications for pragmatic competition},
  Author = {Holly Zheng and Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2023},
  booktitle = {Formal Approaches to Languages of South America},
  publisher= {Springer},
  editor={Andrés Saab and Cilene Rodrigues},
  pages={347--371}
}
```
Scott AnderBois. 2023. Tagalog pala: a case of unsurprising mirativity. Discourse particles in Asian languages: Volume II -- Southeast Asia Hiroki Nomoto and Elin McCready (eds), Routledge, pp. 9-36.
[ abstract | bib | preprint pdf | link ]

This paper investigates the Tagalog second-position particle pala. Similar to many descriptions of miratives cross-linguistically, Schachter and Otanes's (1972) classic descriptive grammar of Tagalog describes it as "expressing mild surprise at new information, or an unexpected event or situation." Drawing on recent work on mirativity in other languages, however, I argue that this characterization needs to be refined in two ways. First, while pala can be used in cases of surprise, pala itself merely encodes the speaker's sudden revelation with the counterexpectational nature of surprise arising pragmatically or from other aspects of the sentence, such as other particles and focus. Second, using data from imperatives and interrogatives, I argue that this revelation need not concern "information" per se but rather the illocutionary update the sentence encodes. Finally, he explores the interactions between pala and other elements which express mirativity in some way and/or interact with the mirativity pala expresses.
```
@incollection{AnderBoisPala23,
  Title = {Tagalog pala: a case of unsurprising mirativity},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2023},
  booktitle = {Discourse particles in Asian languages: Volume II -- Southeast Asia},
  publisher= {Springer},
  editor={Hiroki Nomoto and Elin McCready},
  pages={9--36}
}
```
`

2022

Scott AnderBois and Daniel Altshuler. 2022. Coordination, coherence and A'ingae clause linkage Proceedings of SALT 32
[ abstract | bib | link to pdf ]

This paper examines a particular type of clause linkage ('bridging') in A'ingae, an endangered isolate spoken in Amazonian Ecuador and Colombia. We propose a formal characterization of its meaning (to our knowledge the first formal account for any language) that relies crucially on two SDRT coherence relations: NARRATION and BACKGROUND. We motivate the characterization with textual data and elicited data from context-relative felicity judgments, and propose to derive it from independently observable facts about prosody, coordination, and anaphora in the language.
```
@article{AnderBoisAltshuler22,
  Title = {Coordination, coherence and {A}'ingae clause linkage},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois and Daniel Altshuler},
  Year = {2022},
  journal = {Proceedings of SALT 32},
  pages={793-813}
}
```
Scott AnderBois. 2022. The discourse particle wal in Yucatec Maya: uncertainty and negativity across sentence types. International Journal of American Linguistics. 88(3): 235-269.
[ abstract | bib| preprint]

The morpheme wal in Yucatec Maya is regarded informally as an epistemic modal, often translated with word like English 'might' or 'maybe'. In this paper, we consider the use of wal across a broader range of environments, arguing for a complex picture of wal as a discourse particle as well as its interactions with other factors. First, we show that the semantic effect of wal differs systematically depending on its intonational realization. Second, we show that both intonational variants of wal are felicitous across a wide variety of sentence types, not just declaratives. Overall, we present an analysis in which stressed and unstressed variants of wal interact with different sentence types in principled ways to produce a range of apparent effects. Beyond furthering our understanding of these various elements in Yucatec Maya, the resulting picture contributes to our growing cross-linguistic understanding of discourse particles and their interations with intonation.
```
@article{AnderBois2022,
  Title = {The discourse particle wal in {Y}ucatec {M}aya: uncertainty and negativity across sentence types},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2022},
  journal = {International Journal of American Linguistics},
  volume={88},
  number={3},
  pages={235-269}
}
```
Sabrina Morvillo and Scott AnderBois. 2022. The inner workings of contrast: decomposing A'ingae tsa'ma. Proceedings of Semantics of Understudied Languages of the Americas (SULA) 11, pp. 171-186 .
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

Expressions of contrast in A'ingae often feature the word tsa'ma, frequently translated as English but or Spanish pero. Like all Boolean connectives in the language, however, this word appears to be morphologically complex, consisting of the propositional anaphor tsa plus a suffix -'ma, previously regarded as a counterexpectational of frustrative. In this paper, we explore the question of whether tsa'ma should be synchronically decomposed, concluding that it should but that both tsa'ma and -'ma allow for a broader range of uses, more analogous to English but than frustratives as described in other languages.
```
@article{MorvilloAnderBoisSULA11,
  Title = {The inner workings of contrast: decomposing A'ingae tsa'ma},
  Author = {Sabrina Morvillo and Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2022},
  journal = {Proceedings of SULA 11},
  pages={171-186}
}
```

2020

AnderBois, Scott and Maksymilian Dąbkowski. 2020. A'ingae =sa'ne 'APPR' and the semantic typology of apprehensional adjuncts . Proceedings of SALT 30, pp. 43-62.
[ abstract | bib | link ]

We explore the semantics and typology of functional morphemes encoding apprehensional, i.e. negative prospective, meanings through a detailed case study of the adjunct uses of =sa'ne 'APPR' in A'ingae (or Cofán, ISO 693-3: con, an Amazonian isolate). We develop a unified account of its different uses and explore typological prediction the account makes.
```
@article{AnderBoisDabkowskiSALT30,
  Title = {A'ingae =sa'ne 'APPR' and the semantic typology of apprehensional adjuncts},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois and Maksymilian Dąbkowski},
  Year = {2020},
  journal = {Proceedings of SALT 30},
  pages={43-62}
}
```
Chiara Repetti Ludlow, Haoru Zhang, Hugo Lucitante, Scott AnderBois, and Chelsea Sanker. 2020. A'ingae (Kofán). JIPA's Illustrations of the IPA. 50(3): 431-444.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

This article presents a sketch of the phonetics and phonology of A'ingae, the first instrumental phonetic work published on the language.
```
@article{A'ingaeJIPA,
  Title = {A'ingae (Kof\'an)},
  Author = {Chiara Repetti-Ludlow, Haoru Zhang, Hugo Lucitante, Scott AnderBois, and Chelsea Sanker},
  Year = {2020},
  journal = {Journal of the International Phonetic Association (Illustrations of the IPA)},
volume={50},
number={3},
pages={431-444}
}
```
Scott AnderBois and Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul. 2020. Headless relative clauses in Yucatec Maya In Headless relative clauses in Mesoamerican languages. ed. Ivano Caponigro, Harold Torrence and Roberto Zavala. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 444-474.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

This paper surveys headless relative clauses (i.e. ones with no overt head noun) in Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. We show that Yucatec Maya (YM) allows for four different kinds of surface headless relative clause forms depending on the presence or absence of a wh-word and the presence or absence of a determiner, quantifier, or other D-element and assay the properties of each.
```
@incollection{AnderBoisChanDzul,
  Title = {Headless relative clauses in Yucatec Maya},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois and {Miguel Oscar} {Chan Dzul}},
  Year = {2020},
  Booktitle = {Headless relative clauses in {M}esoamerican languages},
  Editor = {Ivano Caponigro and Harold Torrence and Roberto Zavala},
  Publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  Pages={444-474}
}
```
Kalinda Pride^*, Nicholas Tomlin^*, and Scott AnderBois. 2020. [* = joint first author] LingView: A Web Interface for Viewing FLEx and ELAN Files. Language Documentation & Conservation 14: 87-107.
[ abstract | bib | link ]

This article presents LingView, a web interface for viewing FLEx and ELAN files, optionally time-synced with corresponding audio or video files. While FLEx and ELAN are useful tools for many linguists, the resulting annotated files are often inaccessible to the general public. Here, we describe a data pipeline for combining FLEx and ELAN files into a single JSON format which can be displayed on the web. While this software was originally built as part of the A'ingae Language Documention Project to display a corpus of materials in A'ingae, the software was designed to be a flexible resource for a variety of different communities, researchers, and materials
```
@article{A'ingaeJIPA,
  Title = {LingView: A Web Interface for Viewing FLEx and ELAN Files},
  Author = {Kalinda Pride, Nicholas Tomlin, and Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2020},
  journal = {Language Documentation and Conservation},
  volume={14},
  pages={87-107}
}
```

2019

AnderBois, Scott. 2019. At-issueness in direct quotation: the case of Mayan quotatives. Proceedings of SALT 29
[ abstract | bib | link to pdf ]

Focusing on Yucatec Maya and Tagalog, provides the first detailed examination of reportative evidentials in imperative sentences, exploring consequence both for imperatives and reportatives.
```
@article{AnderBoisSALT29,
  Title = {At-issueness in direct quotation: the case of {M}ayan quotatives},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2019},
  journal = {Proceedings of SALT 29},
  pages={371-391}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2019. Ellipsis in inquisitive semantics. In The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis, pp. 233-252, ed. Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and Tanja Temmerman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

A handbook article surveying approaches to ellipsis making use of inquisitive semantics and to a lesser extent, related semantic/pragmatic ideas such as dynamic semantics and Questions Under Discussion. [Pre-publication version, please cite published version]
```
@incollection{AnderBois:EllipsisHandbook,
  Title = {Ellipsis in inquisitive semantics},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2019},
  Booktitle = {The {O}xford Handbook of Ellipsis},
  Editor = {Jeroen {van Craenenbroeck} and Tanja Temmerman},
  Pages = {233-252},
  Publisher = {Oxford University Press}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2019. Negation, alternatives, and negative polar questions in American English. In Questions in Discourse - volume 1: Semantics, pp. 118-171, ed. Klaus von Heusinger, Malte Zimmermann and Edgar Onea. CRISPI.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

A longstanding puzzle in the semantics/pragmatics of questions has been the subtle differences between positive (e.g. Is it … ?), low negative (Is it not … ?), and high negative polar questions (Isn't it … ?). While they are intuitively ways of asking "the same question", each has distinct felicity conditions and gives rise to different inferences about the speaker's attitude towards this issue and expectations about the state of the discourse. In contrast to their non-interchangeability, the vacuity of double negation means that most theories predict all three to be semantically identical. In this chapter, we build on the non-vacuity of double negation found in inquisitive semantics (e.g. Groenendijk & Roelofsen (2009), AnderBois (2012), Ciardelli et al. (2013)) to break this symmetry. Specifically, we propose a finer-grained version of inquisitive semantics — what we dub 'two-tiered' inquisitive semantics — which distinguishes the 'main' yes/no issue from secondary 'projected' issues. While the main issue is the same across positive and negative counterparts, we propose an account deriving their distinctive properties from these projected issues together with pragmatic reasoning about the speaker's choice of projected issue.
```
@incollection{AnderBoisNegPolQs,
  Title = {Negation, alternatives, and negative polar questions in {A}merican {E}nglish},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2019},
  Booktitle= {Questions in Discourse - volume 1: Semantics},
  Pages={118-171},
  Editor = {Klaus {von Heusinger} and Edgar Onea and Malte Zimmerman},
  Publisher = {CRISPI},
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2019. Reportatives and quotatives in Mayan languages. In Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics (FAMLi) 5
[ abstract | bib | link ]

In addition to lexical verbs of saying, most Mayan languages have two additional resources for reporting the speech of others: reportative evidentials and quotatives. This paper presents a theoretically informed description of the differences between REP and QUOT, drawing primarily on data from Yucatec Maya bin REP and k(ij) QUOT. While REP and QUOT both not-at-issue content about another speech act, the latter does so via direct quo-tation whereas the former does so via an indirect speech report. We explore a variety of different specific syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties that reflect this basic distinction as well as highlighting a few points of variation across Mayan languages.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBois2019FAMLI5,
  Title = {Reportatives and quotatives in {M}ayan languages},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2019},
  Booktitle={Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics (FAMLi) 5},
  Url = {https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2rf3727m},
}
```
AnderBois, Scott, Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul, Jessica Coon, and Juan Jesús Vásquez Álvarez. 2019. Relativas libres en ch'ol y maya yucateco y la tipología de cláusulas relativas sin núucleo. [Free relatives in Ch'ol and Yucatec Maya and the typology of headless relative clauses] In Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics (FAMLi) 5
[ abstract | bib | link ]

El presente estudio tiene como objetivo contribuir al estudio de las cláusulas relativas en dos lenguas mayas, el maya yucateco y el ch'ol, desde una perspectiva comparativa. A diferencia de las lenguas indo-europeas, estas dos lenguas tienen una gran variedad de construcciones relativas sin un núcleo nominal pronunciado que se distinguen superficialmente en cuanto a la presencia o ausencia de palabras wh-/qu- y los determinantes. Dado estas diferencias superficiales, surge la siguiente pregunta: ¿estas diferencias reflejan construcciones que requieren de análisis distintos o se trata solamente de diferencias superficiales? Aquí exploramos los distintos tipos superficiales de estas construcciones y demostramos que hay diferencias importantes entre ellos que se encuentran en contra de un análisis uniforme
This paper contributes to the study of headless relative clauses in two Mayan languages -- Yucatec Maya and Ch'ol -- from a comparative perspective. In contrast to Indo-European languages, these languages have a large variety of relative constructions which lack an overt nominal head, differing in the presence or absence of determiners and wh-words. Given these surface differences, the following question arises: Do these differences reflect constructions that require different analyses or are they just differences in surface form? Here, we explore these constructions and argue that there are important differences between them which argue against a uniform analysis.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBoisetal2019FAMLI5,
  Title = {Relativas libres en ch'ol y maya yucateco y la tipolog\'ia de cl\'ausulas relativas sin n\'ucleo},
  Author = {AnderBois, Scott and Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul and Jessica Coon and Juan Jes\'us V\'asquez \'Alvarez},
  Year = {2019},
  Booktitle={Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics (FAMLi) 5},
  Url = {https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4d837983},
}
```

2018

AnderBois, Scott and Pauline Jacobson. 2018. Answering implicit questions: the case of namely. Proceedings of SALT 28
[ abstract | bib | link to pdf ]

In this paper, we examine the semantic contribution of English namely and how it combines with the surrounding material compositionally to produce appropriate overall sentence meanings. We argue that it introduces an answer to an implicit specificational question, combining with its complement directly, similar to the Qu-Ans analysis of fragments (e.g. Jacobson 2016).
```
@article{AnderBoisJacobsonSALT28,
  Title = {Answering implicit questions: the case of namely},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois and Pauline Jacobson},
  Year = {2018},
  journal = {Proceedings of SALT 28},
  pages={388-408}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2018. Illocutionary revelations: Yucatec Maya bakáan and the typology of miratives. Journal of Semantics
[ abstract | bib | link | prepub ]

Examines the Yucatec Maya mirative particle bakáan, arguing that it encodes sudden revelation rather than surprise and explores and analyzes its interactions with illocutionary mood.
```
@article{AnderBoisBakaan,
  Title = {Illocutionary revelations: Yucatec Maya \textit{bakáan} and the typology of miratives},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2018},
  journal = {Journal of Semantics},
   volume={35},
   number={1},
   pages={171-206},
   doi={doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffx019}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2018. U chíikulil k'áatchi': forma, función, y la estandarización de la puntuación. [U chíikulil k'áatchi': form, function, and the standardization of punctuation] Cuadernos de lingüística de El Colegio de México
[ abstract | bib | link to pdf ]

Investiga el uso y la estandarización del signo de interrogación en maya yucateco. Contraste la norma sencilla propuesta por los autores de U nu'ukbesajil u ts'íibta'al maayat'aan (el no-uso del signo de interrogación) con los sistemas gramaticales bastante complejas que producen las preguntas y construcciones relacionadas en la lengua.
Examines the use and standardization of the question mark in Yucatec Maya writing comparing the simple norm recently proposed in U nu'ukbesajil u ts'íibta'al maayat'aan (not to use the question mark) with the complex grammatical systems underlying questions and related constructions in the language.
```
@article{AnderBoisChiikulil,
  Title = {U chíikulil k'áatchi': forma, función y la estandarización de la puntuación},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2018},
  Volume={5},
  Number={1},
  Pages={388-426},
  journal = {Cuadernos de lingüística de {E}l {C}olegio de {M}éxico}
}
```

2017

AnderBois, Scott. 2017. Focus, Interrogation, and Indefinites. In The Mayan Languages, ed. Judith Aissen and Nora England and Roberto Zavala Maldonado. Routledge.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

A handbook article surveying research on the relationship between focus, indefinites, and interrogatives across Mayan languages. Compares two different existing approaches, one where question alternatives arise compositionally from focus alternatives and one where they are introduced compositionally by indefinite wh-words.
```
@incollection{AnderBoisRoutledge,
  Title = {Focus, Interrogation, and Indefinites},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2017},
  Booktitle = {The {M}ayan Languages},
  Editor = {Judith Aissen and Nora England and Roberto Zavala Maldonado},
  Address = {New York},
  Publisher = {Routledge Publishing},
  Pages={348-361}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2017. An illocutionary account of reportative evidentials in imperatives. Proceedings of SALT 27
[ abstract | bib | link to pdf ]

Focusing on Yucatec Maya and Tagalog, provides the first detailed examination of reportative evidentials in imperative sentences, exploring consequence both for imperatives and reportatives.
```
@article{AnderBoisSALT27,
  Title = {An illocutionary account of reportative evidentials in imperatives},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2017},
  journal = {Proceedings of SALT 27},
  pages={459-479}
}
```

2016

AnderBois, Scott. 2016. A QUD-based account of the discourse particle naman in Tagalog. In Proceedings of AFLA 23.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

Although the Tagalog second position particle naman is often regarded as marking contrast, we show that it also has plainly non-contrastive uses including to convey obviousness. We develop a unified account of contrastive and non-contrastive uses of naman in a QUD-framework as marking the closure of the prior immediate QUD. While the focus here is on naman in declaratives, we briefly explore the prospects of extending the account to its use in imperatives and with predicate adjectives.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBois:AFLA23,
  Title = {A {QUD}-based account of the discourse particle naman in {T}agalog},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2016},
  Booktitle = {{AFLA} 23: the proceedings of the 23rd meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association},
  pages={20-34},
  Editor =  {Nomoto, Hiroki and Miyauchi, Takuya and Shiohara, Asako},
	publisher = {Asia-Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2016. Illocutionary mirativity: the case of Yucatec Maya bakáan. In Proceedings of SULA 9, pp. 1-16 Ed. Thuy Bui and Rudmila-Rodica Ivan
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

Mirative morphemes have been described as expressing that the speaker finds a given proposition to be new information, sudden revelation, surprise, or counter to their expectations. The difference between these different notions, however, has largely been take to be a matter of analysis or its conceptual underpinnings rather an empirical one. In this paper, I examine a previously undiscussed mirative, Yucatec Maya bakáan, using data from context-relative felicity judgment tasks to argue that it encodes a sudden revelation or realization on the part of the speaker rather than these other notions. Beyond this, I argue that the object of bakáan's revelation is not its propositional content per se, but rather the illocutionary update it encodes (similar to illocutionary evidentials). Pulling these two together, the analysis of bakáan in declaratives as an illocutionary modifier offers lessons for the study of miratives as well as the structure of illocutioanry updates generally.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBois:SULA9,
  Title = {Illocutionary mirativity: the case of {Y}ucatec {M}aya bakáan},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2016},
  Booktitle = {Proceedings of SULA 9},
  Editor = {Thuy Bui and Rudmila-Rodica Ivan},
  pages={1-16},
  location = {Amherst, Massachusetts},
  Publisher = {GLSA Publications, University of Massachusetts}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2016. Semantics and pragmatics of (not-)at-issueness in Yucatec Maya attitude reports. Semantics & Pragmatics 9(19).
[ abstract | bib | link ]

English attitude reports like 'x thinks that p' can be used in two different types of contexts: ones where the Question Under Discussion (QUD) concerns whether or not p is true and ones where the QUD concerns x's mental state itself. Yucatec Maya (YM) has two different morphosyntactic forms differing superficially in the presence or absence of the morpheme -e', which serves as a topic marker elsewhere in the language. This paper argues that despite being truth-conditionally equivalent, the use of these two forms is consistently correlated with which sort of QUD is present in the context. To account for these facts, we develop a particular conception of the relationships between QUDs, relevance, at-issueness, and assertion, building on the account of Simons et al. (2011). Given this theory, we propose a semantics where -e' encodes that the attitudinal predication is parenthetical, i.e. not part of the at-issue proposal (similar to English sentences like "It's raining, I think.") and instead contributes to what we dub the 'basis' of the proposal. We show that this semantics, together with plausible general pragmatic reasoning, provides an account of the meaning of the two attitude construction in YM and their distribution in discourse.
```
@article{AnderBois:2016SP,
  Title = {Semantics and pragmatics of (not-)at -issueness in {Y}ucatec {M}aya attitude reports},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2016},
  Journal = {Semantics \& Pragmatics},
  Volume = {9},
  Number = {19},
}
```
Silva, Wilson and Scott AnderBois. 2016. Fieldwork Game Play: Masterminding Evidentiality in Desano. Language Documentation & Conservation 10: 58-76.
[ abstract | bib | link ]

In this paper, we propose a methodology for collecting naturally occurring data on evidentials and epistemic modals. We use Desano (Eastern Tukanoan) as a case study. This language has a complex evidential system with six evidential forms. The methodology in question consists of having Desano speakers to play a logic game, Mastermind. In this game one player (the codemaker) places colored pegs behind a screen and the other player (the codebreaker) tries to guess the code, receiving partial feedback from the codemaker through clues after each intermediate guess. In order to offset the unnaturalness of the codemaker?s exclusive knowledge of the actual code, we adapt the task to have two codebreakers playing the game jointly and discussing what they know, what the code could/must be, etc. We found that there are several benefits to this method. It provides naturalistic dialogue between multiple speakers, rather than just monologue; utterances naturally vary as to whether speakers in the scenario have access to and interest in what kind of information source the speaker has or simply the conclusion they draw from this information; finally, an important point is that speakers find the task enjoyable. We hope that this study can add the body of literature on methods for collecting naturalistic speech for language documentation and description.
```
@article{SilvaAnderBois2016,
  Title = {Fieldwork Game Play: Masterminding Evidentiality in {D}esano},
  Author = {Wilson Silva and Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2016},
  Journal = {Language Documentation \& Conservation}
  Volume = {10},
  Pages = {58-76},
}
```

2015

AnderBois, Scott and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson. 2015. At-issue proposals and appositive impositions in discourse. Journal of Semantics 32(1), pp. 93-138.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

Potts (2005) and many subsequent works have argued that the semantic content of appositive (non-restrictive) relative clauses, e.g., the boldfaced material in John, who nearly killed a woman with his car, visited her in the hospital, must be in some way separate from the content of the rest of the sentence, i.e., from at-issue content. At the same time, there is mounting evidence from various anaphoric processes that the two kinds of content must be integrated into a single, incrementally evolving semantic representation. The challenge is how to reconcile this informational separation with these pervasive anaphoric connections. We propose a dynamic semantic account that accomplishes this by taking appositive and at-issue content to involve two different kinds of updates to the Context Set (CS). Treating the context set as a distinguished propositional variable, we argue that appositives directly impose their content on the CS variable by eliminating possible values assigned to it. In contrast, we treat at-issue assertions as introducing a new propositional dref and proposing that the CS variable be updated with its content, subject to addressee's response. In addition to capturing the behavior of appositives in discourse, we show that the account can be extended to capture the projection of appositive content past various sentential operators.
```
@article{AnderBoisetal:2015JoS,
  Title = {At-issue proposals and appositive impositions in discourse},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson},
  Year = {2015},
  Journal = {Journal of Semantics}
  Volume = {32},
  Number = {1},
  Pages =  {93-138}
}
```

AnderBois, Scott and Robert Henderson. 2015. Linguistically establishing discourse context: two case studies from Mayan languages. in Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork, pp. 207-232, ed. Ryan Bochnak and Lisa Matthewson, Oxford University Press.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

2014

AnderBois, Scott. 2014. The semantics of sluicing: beyond truth-conditions. Language 90(4), pp. 887-926.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

Since Merchant 2001, it has been widely agreed that the licensing condition on sluicing is at least partially semantic in nature. This article argues that the semantics this condition operates on must include not only truth conditions, but also the issues introduced by existential quantification and disjunction. In the account presented here, the special role these elements play in antecedents for sluicing derives from the deep semantic connections between these elements and questions. In addition to accounting for well-known facts about sluicing in a natural way, this article also ana- lyzes novel facts such as the interaction of sluicing with appositives and double negation, and han- dles recalcitrant cases such as disjunctive antecedents. The account can readily be extended to so-called 'sprouting' cases where the crucial material in the antecedent is an implicit argument or is missing altogether.
```
@article{AnderBoisSluicing,
  Title = {The semantics of sluicing: beyond truth-conditions},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2014},
  Journal = {Language}
  Volume = {90},
  Number = {4},
  Pages =  {887-926}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2014. On the exceptional status of reportative evidentials. in Proceedings of SALT 24, pp. 234-254.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | appendix | link ]

One of the central questions in the study of evidentials cross-linguistically is to what extent (and in what ways) evidentials differ across languages and across evidence types. This paper examines one such instance of variation: the ability for a single speaker to deny the scope of a reportative evidential, an instance of what we dub 'Reportative Exceptionality' (RE). Empirically, we show that RE is widely attested across a diverse range of reportatives. Theoretically, we propose a pragmatic account treating RE as an instance of pragmatically-induced perspective shift. Having done so, we propose a semantics for illocutionary evidentials on which reportatives are given a treatment uniform to other evidence types.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBoisSALT24,
  Title = {On the exceptional status of reportative evidentials},
  Author = {Scott Ander{B}ois},
  Year = {2014},
  Publisher={LSA and CLC Publications},
  Booktitle={Semantics and Linguistic Theory {(SALT)}},
  Volume={24},
  Editor={Todd Snider, Sarah {D'A}ntonio, Mia Wiegand},
  Pages= {234-254}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2014. Unconditionals in Yucatec Maya. in Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics (FAMLi) 2, pp. 1-20.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

This paper presents a survey of unconditional constructions in Yucatec Maya. Whereas such constructions in English have been argued to make use of primarily interrogative parts (e.g. Rawlins 2008), I show that unconditionals in Yucatec Maya are composed mainly of non-interrogative parts: so-called subjunctive mood, disjunction, the topic construction, and free-choice free relatives.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBoisFAMLi2,
  Title = {Unconditionals in Yucatec Maya},
  Author = {Scott Ander{B}ois},
  Year = {2014},
  Publisher={MIT Working Papers in Linguistics},
  Booktitle={Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics {(FAMLi)} 2},
  Editor={Lauren Eby Clemens, Robert Henderson, and Pedro Mateo Pedro},
  Pages= {1-20}
}
```

2012

AnderBois, Scott. 2012. Focus and uninformativity in Yucatec Maya questions. Natural Language Semantics 20(4), pp. 349-390.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

Crosslinguistically, questions frequently make crucial use of morphosyntactic elements which also occur outside of questions. Chief among these are focus, disjunctions, and wh-words with indefinite semantics. This paper provides a compositional account of the semantics of wh-, alternative, and polar questions in Yucatec Maya (YM), which are composed primarily of these elements. Key to the account is a theory of disjunctions and indefinites (extending work by others) which recognizes the inherently inquisitive nature of these elements. While disjunctions and indefinites are inquisitive, they differ from questions since they are also truth-conditionally informative. Compositionally, then, the role of focus in YM questions is to presuppose the informative component of an indefinite wh-word or disjunction, rendering the inquisitive component the question's only new contribution to the discourse. In addition to deriving question denotations compositionally, the account also captures a potentially surprising fact: focused disjunctions in YM can function as either questions or assertions, depending solely on the discourse context.
```
@article{AnderBoisNALS,
  Title = {Focus and uninformativity in Yucatec Maya questions},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2012},
  Journal = {Natural Language Semantics}
  Volume = {20},
  Number = {4},
  Pages =  {349-390}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2012. Indefiniteness and the typology of implicit arguments. in Proceedings of WCCFL 30, pp. 43-53.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

The literature on implicit arguments (IAs) in English has long distinguished between two types: definite (e.g. notice) and indefinite (e.g. eat). Using Heim's novelty condition and Sluicing as diagnostics, this paper argues that, in addition to these two types, a third type of IA exists, which we dub flexible (e.g. win). Although they superficially appear to be ambiguous as to definite and indefinite uses, the paper argues that they are best treated as lexical entailments of the predicates in question, rather than as true semantic arguments. Having separated out these flexible IAs, the paper concludes with a re-examination of the semantics and distribution of definite and indefinite IAs.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBoisWCCFL30,
  Title = {Indefiniteness and the typology of implicit arguments},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois},
  Year = {2012},
  Booktitle = {Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL)}
  Editor = {Nathan Arnett and Ryan Bennett},
  Volume = {30},
  Pages =  {43-53}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson. 2012. The pragmatics of quantifier scope: a corpus study. in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB) 16 vol. 1, pp. 15-28.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

Most investigations of quantifier scope are concerned with the range of possible scopes for sentences with multiple quantifiers. Instead, this study examines the actual scopes (i.e., the pragmatics of quantifier scope disambiguation) in a naturally quantifier-rich corpus: LSAT Logic Puzzles. The three main findings of our investigation are as follows. First, we confirmed findings in previous literature that linear order and grammatical function have an effect on scope-taking preferences. Second, we discovered that lexical effects on scoping preferences are at least as important as linear order or grammatical function. Third, the relational aspect of these lexical effects, i.e., the lexical realizations of the other quantifiers in the sentence, is also important. The present investigation opens the way towards a broader research program of identifying scoping-behavior patterns that should ultimately enable us to group quantifiers into classes depending on the type of scopal behavior they exhibit. These classes could provide an empirical basis for semantic theories that assign different kinds of semantic representations to different classes and/or for psycholinguistic theories that hypothesize different processing strategies for different classes.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBoisSuB16,
  Title = {The pragmatics of quantifier scope: a corpus study},
  Author = {Scott AnderBois and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson},
  Year = {2012},
  Booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und {B}edeutung {(SuB)} 16}
  Editor = {Ana Aguilar Guevara, Anna Chernilovskaya, and Rick Nouwen},
  Publisher = {MIT Working Papers in Linguistics},
  Volume = {1},
  Pages =  {15-28}
}
```

2011

AnderBois, Scott. 2011. Issues and alternatives. PhD Thesis, UC Santa Cruz.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

[Significant portions are superseded by 2012 NALS paper, 2014 Language Paper and paper to appear in CRISPI volume on Questions in Discourse] The central topic of this dissertation is the semantic relationship between disjunctions, indefinites, and other instances of existential quantification on the one hand and questions on the other. I argue that the former have more in common with the latter than is generally acknowledged and, in particular, that their compositional semantics includes not only truth-conditional information, but also an issue-raising or inquisitive capacity. For example, a simple assertion like "Someone left." not only proposes to rule out the possibility that no one left, it also presents the issue of 'Who left?' as a possible direction for future discussion. This dissertation presents several empirical arguments for this inquisitive capacity and for particular interactions with other elements in the sentence, based on the compositional semantics of Yucatec Maya questions, English sluicing, and various kinds of positive and negative polar questions in American English.
```
@phdthesis{AnderBois_PhD,
  	Author = {Scott AnderBois},
	Title = {Issues and alternatives},
	School = {UC Santa Cruz},
	Year = {2011},
}
```

2010

AnderBois, Scott and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson. 2010. Crossing the appositive / at-issue meaning boundary. in Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 20, pp. 328-346.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

Our goal is to provide systematic evidence from anaphora, presupposition and ellipsis that appositive meaning and at-issue meaning, e.g. as contributed by the relative appositive and the main clause in John, who nearly killed a woman with his car, visited HER in the hospital, have to be integrated into a single, incrementally evolving semantic representation. While previous literature has provided partial arguments to this effect (Nouwen 2007 for anaphora, Amaral et al 2007 and Potts 2009 for both anaphora and presupposition), the systematic nature of this evidence - in particular, the evidence from ellipsis we will introduce - has been previously unnoticed. We propose an analysis of these phenomena that integrates the dynamic account of anaphora and ellipsis as discourse reference to individuals and properties (respectively) with an account of at-issue meaning as a proposed update of the input Context Set (CS) that is to be negotiated and of appositive meaning as an actual / imposed update of the CS that is not up for negotiation.
```
@inproceedings{ABH_SALT20,
  	Author = {Scott AnderBois and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson},
	Title = {Crossing the appositive / at-issue meaning boundary},
	Journal = {Semantics and Linguistic Theory},
	Volume = {20},
	Year = {2010},
  	Pages =  {328-346}
}
```
AnderBois, Scott. 2010. Sluicing as anaphora to issues. in Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 20, pp. 451-470.
[ abstract | bib | pdf | link ]

Since Merchant 2001, it has been widely agreed that the licensing condition on Sluicing is at least partly semantic in nature. This paper argues that the relevant semantic condition is one of symmetric entailment over a semantics which includes not only truth-conditional information, but also issues in the sense of Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009. One kind of evidence for the proposal comes from expressions like doubly-negated inde?nites and implicit passive agents which do not license Sluicing despite truth-conditional equivalence to overt inde?nites. In addition to these facts, the paper examines novel data which show that Sluicing is not licensed by even overt inde?nites inside of appositive relative clauses, arguing that these facts (and related facts regarding VP-Ellipsis) follow from the account together with an independently motivated semantics for appositives.
```
@inproceedings{AnderBois_SALT20,
  	Author = {Scott AnderBois},
	Title = {Sluicing as anaphora to issues},
	Journal = {Semantics and Linguistic Theory},
	Volume = {20},
	Year = {2010},
  	Pages =  {451-470}
}
```

AnderBois, Scott. 2010. Non-interrogative questions in Yukatek Maya. in Proceedings of Semantics of Understudied Languages of the Americas (SULA) 5, pp. 1-16.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

2008

AnderBois, Scott. 2008. Strong positions and laryngeal features in Yukatek Maya. in Proceedings of North East Linguistics Society (NELS) 39, vol. 1, pp. 41-54.
[ abstract | bib | pdf ]

Analyzes two prosodically conditioned processes (aspiration and [h]-epenthesis) in Yucatec Maya, arguing that they can both be thought of as instances of a broader cross-linguistic pattern of "Final Laryngeal Strengthening".
```
@inproceedings{AnderBoisNELS39,
  	Author = {Scott AnderBois},
	Title = {Strong positions and laryngeal features in Yukatek Maya},
	Journal = {North East Linguistics Society (NELS) 39},
	Volume = {1},
	Editor = {Suzi Lima and Kevin Mullin and {Brian W.} Smith},
	Year = {2008},
  	Pages =  {41-54}
}
```

Scott AnderBois