| 1. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta, et al.
(author)
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Argument wh-questions and implications in Swedish
- 2012
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In: Discourse & Grammar. A Festschrift in Honor of Valéria Molnár. - 9789163704116 ; , s. 147-159
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, I discuss the following questions: - What kind of implication arises from an argument wh-question? - What kind of implication arises from a clefted argument wh-question in Swedish? - Is there any difference in Swedish between clefted and non-clefted argument wh-questions with regard to the implications of existence they give rise to? I argue that both types of argument wh-questions in Swedish, clefted and non-clefted, give rise to the same kind of pragmatic implication and that the choice between clefted and non-clefted form does not depend on a difference in semantic content, but is, in most cases, determined by the kind of propositional attitude held by the speaker. In particular, I argue that every wh-question requires some way in which the questioner, the one asking a wh-question, is cognitively related to the truth of some proposition. Moreover, I show that clefted argument wh-questions are preferred in Swedish when the speaker holds a very strong commitment to the truth of the proposition.
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| 2. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta, et al.
(author)
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Attrition at the interfaces in bilectal acquisition (Italian/Gallipolino)
- 2016
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In: Theoretical Approaches to Linguistic Variation. - Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 0166-0829. - 9789027257178 - 9789027266316 ; 234, s. 295-316
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of this study is to investigate whether native speakers of Gallipolino, bilectals who have acquired Gallipolino as L1 (together with standard Italian) in their childhood, who have left Gallipoli after puberty and currently use standard Italian as their primary language, display effects of attrition with respect to subordinate clauses embedded under the complementizers ku and ka. Our hypothesis is that complementizer selection in Gallipolino exhibits emergent optionality (that leads to ungrammaticality) due to influence of standard Italian. To test this hypothesis, a grammaticality judgment task has been designed and administered to 14 participants.
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| 3. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta, et al.
(author)
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Cognitive factive verbs across languages
- 2022
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In: Language Sciences. - : Elsevier BV. - 0388-0001. ; 90
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the last few years, the traditional analysis of know as a factive verb has been lively debated by linguists and philosophers of language: several scholars have pointed out that know may be used non-factively in ordinary language. The aim of the present study is to expand this inquiry to other cognitive factive verbs than know, such as discover, realize, etc., and to investigate cross-linguistically the question of whether know and other cognitive factive verbs may occur in non-factive contexts, that is, in contexts where it is clear that the embedded proposition is false. Moreover, we investigate whether so-called evidential uses of cognitive factive verbs are acceptable across languages. We administered an online survey to native speakers of nine different languages (English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Serbian, Spanish, and Swedish), and we found considerable cross-linguistic variation in the acceptability of the use of know and other cognitive factive verbs in non-factive contexts. For Italian and English, we put forward the claim that non-factive uses of cognitive factives instantiate a case of polysemy resulting from a process of semantic change that moves along a three-step pattern: from a factive sense to a more general non-factive sense to a non-factive sense characterized by an evidential function.
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| 4. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta, et al.
(author)
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Comunicazione implicita nel linguaggio giuridico legislativo
- 2020
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In: Linguaggi settoriali e specialistici : sincronia, diacronia, traduzione, variazione : atti del 15. Congresso SILFI, Società internazionale di linguistica e filologia italiana (Genova, 28-30 maggio 2018) / a cura di Jacqueline Visconti, Manuela Manfredini, Lorenzo Coveri - atti del 15. Congresso SILFI, Società internazionale di linguistica e filologia italiana (Genova, 28-30 maggio 2018) / a cura di Jacqueline Visconti, Manuela Manfredini, Lorenzo Coveri. - 0579-1316. - 9788876678172 ; 169
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)
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| 5. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta
(author)
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Conversational Implicatures Are Still Cancellable
- 2013
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In: Acta Analytica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0353-5150 .- 1874-6349. ; 28:3, s. 321-327
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Is it true that all conversational implicatures are cancellable? In some recent works (Weiner 2006, followed by Blome-Tillmann 2008 and, most recently, by Hazlett 2012), the property of cancellability that, according to Grice (1989), conversational implicatures must possess has been called into question. The aim of this paper is to show that the cases on which Weiner builds his argument—the Train Case and the Sex Pistols Case— do not really suffice to endanger Grice’s Cancellability Hypothesis. What Weiner has shown with his examples is that a conversational implicature cannot be cancelled if the speaker, whose utterance gives rise to the implicature, does not intend to cancel it. To implicate is an intentional speech act and, therefore, cancelling an implicature must also be intentional and must be performed by the same speaker whose utterance gives rise to the putative implicature.
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| 6. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta
(author)
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Conveying meaning in legal language : Why the language of legislation needs to be more explicit than ordinary language
- 2022
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In: Journal of Pragmatics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0378-2166. ; 198, s. 43-53
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In current debate, a considerable amount of attention is given to the question of whether theories of verbal communication that apply to ordinary communicative exchanges - inparticular Grice’s conversational model - likewise apply to legal contexts. In Grice’s analysis, implicit contents are conveyed by speakers, as well as correctly interpreted by hearers, because ordinary conversations are assumed to be governed by a Principle of Cooperation. With regard to the context of legislation, that is, the context where communication by legislative acts takes place, it has been argued that Grice’s theoretical approach applies only partially, because this context is not a cooperative, but rather a strategic one. The aim of this study is to contribute to the debate discussing the peculiarity of the communicative context of legislation. It will be argued that the legislator’s ability to convey conversational implicatures must be called into question. In particular, the indeterminacy of the legislative context excludes that the legislator be able to convey particularized conversational implicatures, while the legislator may convey generalized conversational implicatures. Moreover, it will be shown how the peculiarity of the context of legislation leads to the “explicitation” of contents that typically are implicitly conveyed in ordinary contexts.
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| 7. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta
(author)
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Did People in the Middle Ages Know that the Earth Was Flat?
- 2016
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In: Acta Analytica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0353-5150 .- 1874-6349. ; 31:2, s. 139-152
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The goal of this paper is to explore the presuppositionality of factive verbs, with special emphasis on the verbs know and regret. The hypothesis put forward here is that the factivity related to know and the factivity related to regret are two different phenomena, as the former is a semantic implication (an entailment) that is licensed by the conventional meaning of know, while the latter is a purely pragmatic phenomenon that arises conversationally. More specifically, it is argued that know is factive in the sense that it both entails and (pragmatically) presupposes p, while regret is factive in the sense that it only (pragmatically) presupposes p. In a recent article, Hazlett (2010) shows with authentic examples how know is used non-factively in ordinary language, and he observes in these examples, as he says, “a threat to Factivity”. I argue that non-factive uses of factive verbs, such as know and regret, far from being a threat to factivity, show that, on the one hand, know is ambiguous between a factive and a non-factive sense; on the other hand, in the case of regret, the presupposition of factivity has to be intended as a merely pragmatic implication which can be suspended by the speaker herself.
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| 8. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta
(author)
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Il sistema di doppia complementazione nel dialetto di Gallipoli (Lecce). Un'analisi semantica
- 2011
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In: Arena Romanistica. - 1890-4580. ; 8, s. 177-197
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Like the other dialects spoken in the Salentine peninsula, the dialect from Gallipoli, Gallipolino, presents a limited use of infinitival clauses. Instead of several infinitival constructions as in standard Italian, we find some finite constructions introduced by two different complementizers: ka and ku. Traditionally, the phenomenon of the double complementation system in Southern Italian dialects has been described in semantic-functional terms, highlighting the fact that the distribution depends on what the matrix predicate denotes. The purpose of this study is to propose a new analysis, anchored to some semantic issues that seem to have a significant incidence on the phenomenon.
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| 9. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta
(author)
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Narrazione dell’abbandono tra letteratura e cinema
- 2016
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In: Revue Romane. - : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 0035-3906. ; 51:1, s. 125-146
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper aims at offering a comparative analysis of the narrator in the novel “I giorni dell’abbandono” (2002) by the Italian writer Elena Ferrante, and the narrator in the cinematographic version of the same work “I giorni dell’abbandono” (2005), directed by Roberto Faenza. The paper focuses on some narrative properties that emerge in Elena Ferrante’s novel “I giorni dell’abbandono”, and compares the literary narrator to the cinematographic narrator in Roberto Faenza’s movie “I giorni dell’abbandono”. Furthermore, the paper discusses different narrative strategies as used in these two different media, literary text and cinematographic work.
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| 10. |
- Colonna Dahlman, Roberta, 1970-, et al.
(author)
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Presuppositions, again
- 2019
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In: Philosophical Insights into Pragmatics. - Berlin : Walter de Gruyter. - 2627-2288 .- 2627-227X. - 9783110623765 - 9783110628937 - 9783110626339
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Presupposition is surely one of the most debated notions in the linguistic and philosophical literature. Historically, there are two main theoretical approaches to presuppositions. According to the first one, the semantic view, presuppositions are semantic implications, that is, truth-conditional relations between propositions and statements. In this sense, presuppositions are considered properties of sentences and a presupposed proposition is a necessary condition for the truth of the presupposing statement. In the second approach, the pragmatic view, presuppositions are not properties of sentences but rather properties of speakers or of linguistic performances given a certain context of utterance. From this view, a presupposed proposition is a condition for the felicitous utterance of the presupposing statement in a given context.Traditionally, it is assumed that semantic presuppositions differ from classical entailments, as presuppositions, unlike classical entailments, project under negation: if we compare a context of entailment to a context of presupposition, we should see that entailments, but not presuppositions, disappear under negation. This presentation aims to propose a revision of the semantic notion of presupposition. I argue that most standard cases of presuppositions are classical entailments. Moreover, I claim that all presuppositions that are classical entailments are also pragmatic presuppositions, while not all pragmatic presuppositions are also classical entailments. I contend that factive verbs offer a paradigmatic example of this distinction, as the factivity related to know is semantic, hence a classical entailment, whereas the factivity related to regret is merely pragmatic. This claim stands in contrast to Karttunen’s (1971) well-known analysis of factive verbs and his distinction between true factives (that is, emotive factives) and semifactives (that is, cognitive factives).
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