News
Exciting things are always afoot.
New paper out on mereological and arithmetic division
A paper by Elizabeth Coppock has been published in the proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 30:
Title: Unifying mereological and arithmetic division
Abstract: This paper focuses on the Hungarian suffix -nként, which co-lexifies arithmetic division and mereological division. It is first established that -nként, like per, expresses the notion of division (quotient) in the arithmetic sense. This observation motivates an analysis grounded in quantity calculus, as has previously been argued for per. At the same time, -nként has a wide range of usage, including uses as frequency adverbials and in cases that could be translated with English by, as in by color, among others that could be seen as involving mereological division of an event into subevents. The paper offers a unified analysis, building on several ways of enriching of the arithmetic division analysis, including a homogeneity operator. One lesson from this exercise is that distributivity, implemented via mereological division, can be factored into these two components, viz. arithmetic division and homogeneity.
Coppock and Bumford present at SALT 36 in Buenos Aires
Elizabeth Coppock and Dylan Bumford presented a poster entitled "Pluractional adverbials as incremental quantifiers" at SALT 32 in Buenos Aires in July 2026.
Poster available for download here.
Abstract:
Quantifier-internal readings of new and different, as
in Every day there is a different problem, are licensed only
by a small class of quantifiers, which Bumford (2015) unifies as the
dynamic and incremental ones. Hungarian -nként forms periodic
frequency adverbials, and in that usage it licenses internal readings
too, but it raises two complications. Unlike ordinary universals,
periodic frequency adverbials are atelic; and -nként ranges
well beyond the iterative use, with manner uses (`take the pill in
quarters', like English X-by-X) and basis uses (`arrange the
clothes by color') that are telic, exhaustive, and immune to
indefinite covariation. Our goal is to account for the scopal
behavior with respect to indefinites and internal readings, the
aspectual profiles, and the presence or absence of exhaustivity,
while positing only one lexical entry for -nként. We combine
Bumford's incremental quantification with Pratt and Francez's
cascades, implemented in Beaver and Condoravdi's linking semantics,
and extend cascading domain restriction from temporal adjuncts to
core arguments. The upshot is a single segmenter-plus-fold
denotation, reused across all three modes, which differ only in what
the operator composes with and by what route.
Ying Gong defends dissertation!
Huge congratulations to Ying Gong, who successfully defended her excellent dissertation, "Gradability puzzles in Ersu: Evaluativity, Markedness, and Directional Morphemes" on July 9, 2026.
Abstract:
This dissertation investigates the semantics of gradable predicates in Ersu, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language. It focuses on two main puzzles. The first puzzle concerns the morpheme ya- and its interaction with the semantic property of evaluativity. The second puzzle concerns directional prefixes, which can be used to form degree achievement predicates with gradable roots. Both puzzles lead to a greater understanding of broader issues in the theory of meaning.
New fieldwork shows that ya-, a prefix that accompanies many Ersu gradable adjectives, has a complex distribution that is conditioned by syllable count, polarity, construction type, their interaction. In cases where it is optional, it gives rise to evaluativity inferences. Despite its complexity, this pattern follows from a small set of independently motivated assumptions: a ban on monosyllabic degree phrases; two markedness hierarchies—negative adjectives more marked than positive ones, ya-prefixed forms more marked than bare ones; and a principle that maps marked forms to marked readings. The case of Ersu shows that markedness competition can draw on several multiple markedness hierarchies at once, and a single, flat competition among their alternatives can generate the correct marked-meaning inferences.
The second puzzle deals with the hallmark feature of Qiangic languages – directional prefixes that often encode spatial directions (up/down/in/out). Building on work showing that these prefixes are semantically active, this dissertation argues that the particular semantic contribution of these prefixes in degree achievement predicates tracks the spatial direction of change with dimensional gradable roots, and offers a compositional analysis that formally derives the distribution of prefixes with dimensional gradable roots. In order to do so, the dissertation extends Vector-space semantics with the notion of frame of reference and proposes a measurement convention that involves a special measuring frame. Gradable roots are taken to return object-boundary-anchored vectors, pointing outward (along the relevant axis) for positive roots and inward for negative ones. Prefix-root pairing is derived through matching of vector directions. The spatial ontology developed in this chapter has potential to be extended to other phenomena in natural language grounded in physical space.
Coppock presents on reduplicated numerals in Newar at SULA-TripleA 2026
At the epic SULA-TripleA 2026 conference, bringing together Semanticists who work on Understudied Languages of the Americas and semanticists who work on languages of Africa Asia, and Austronesia, Elizabeth Coppock presented a paper entitled "Unifying dependent-indefinite and independent-universal numeral reduplication in Newar".
Abstract:
This paper presents new fieldwork data on reduplicated numerals in Newar (a.k.a. Nepal Bhasa), a Sino-Tibetan language with a rich numeral classifier system spoken primarily in the Kathmandu Valley region of Nepal. As in Hungarian, Telugu, and Kaqchikel, among many other languages, reduplicated numerals in Newar signal distributivity, functioning as dependent indefinites. What sets the Newar case apart is that reduplication of the numeral 'one' can additionally be interpreted as a universal quantifier without a licensor. These independent-universal uses constitute an apparent violation of Gil's conjecture that reduplicated distributivity markers always mark the share rather than the key in a distributive relation. This paper offers a unified analysis of both uses, building on Dynamic Plural Logic and adopting the anaphoric co-indexing advocated by Kuhn on the basis of data from ASL. The key claim is that independent-universal uses arise when the share variable and the key variable are co-indexed, so that constraints normally imposed only on the key---atomicity and maximality---are inherited by the share, producing a universal interpretation exhausting the nominal domain.
Coppock presents commentary on Hans Kamp’s paper at Princeton-Rutgers Semantics Workshop
At the 2026 Princeton-Rutgers Semantics Workshop, Elizabeth Coppock presented commentary on Hans Kamp's paper on Russell's Ambiguity.
Abstract:
There are three main strategies that have been proposed for deriving the ambiguity in Russell's famous example, where a guest says to the touchy owner of a yacht, I thought your yacht was longer than it is (to which the owner replies, No, my yacht is not longer than it is). Two involve scope movement, either of the comparative element -er along with the than-clause, or of just the latter. An alternative is 'double-indexing', for example with an `actually'-operator. The talk takes stock of the advantages and disadvantages of the various alternatives, and concludes that none of them captures the full range of facts. We are apparently left with an open question about this more than century-old example.
Slides available here.
Coppock/Hill/Myler present on Indonesian reciprocals at LSA
A poster entitled "Voice-mismatch reciprocals in Indonesian and binary predicate conjunction" by Elizabeth Coppock, Romi Hill and Neil Myler will be presented at the LSA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA, January 2026.
Abstract:
Our paper focuses on a phenomenon in Indonesian we call voice-mismatch reciprocals. For example, Ani dan Ani jimpit-men-jimpit means `Ani and Ana pinched each other'. This construction may appear at first to be one of Indonesian's many reduplication constructions, as Mistica et al. (2009) argue. We argue instead that this construction involves coordination, in agreement with Udayana et al. (2024). We argue in particular that it is binary predicates that are coordinated, in the manner that Staroverov (2007) envisions for syndetic coordination of relational nouns, as in brother and sister. We show that the binary coordination analysis offers a principled route to the reciprocal reading, relying only on general mechanisms, one which is compatible with the argument-selection behavior of the verbs involved.
Talk on numeral reduplication in Newar at University of Buenos Aires
A talk entitled "Unifying dependent and independent numeral reduplication in Newar" was presented by Elizabeth Coppock at the University of Buenos Aires, December 17, 2025.
Abstract: Reduplicated numerals in Newar (to which matching numeral classifiers affix), as in cha-mha cha-mha nyaa `one-clf.anim one clf.anim fish', like reduplicated numerals in languages where they have already been studied, can serve as dependent indefinites, introducing existential quantification under the scope of a licensing universal. But they have another use as well, one that could be called independent, as it does not rely on the presence of a distinct distributive operator in the sentence. The independent uses come with a universal interpretation. So reduplicated numerals in Newar have both dependent-indefinite and independent-universal uses. I propose a way of unifying them using sequences. The analysis offers a new lens on `simultaneous distributivity', a phenomenon in which one and the same element marks both the share and the key.
Slides available here.
Professor Coppock presents at Sinn und Bedeutung and U Chicago
Sinn und Bedeutung 30 was held at the University of Frankfurt in September 2025. Professor Coppock presented on Friday.
Title: Unifying arithmetic and mereological division.
Abstract here.
A longer version of the talk was presented at the University of Chicago in October. Slides here.
New paper on distributivity via reduplication in Mandinka!
The Proceedings of Triple A 10 have just been published, including a contribution by BU PhD student Ousmane Cisse and Prof. Elizabeth Coppock entitled "Reduplicated distributivity in Mandinka".
Here is a PDF of the published paper, and here is the video of our talk:
Cite as: Cisse, Ousmane and Elizabeth Coppock (2024). Reduplicated Distributivity in Mandinka. In Jeanne Lecavelier, Niklas Geick, Mira Grubic, Prarthanaa Bharadwaj and Malte Zimmermann (eds.), Proceedings of Triple A 10 (2023), 75--89.
Abstract
Reduplication is commonly exhibited by markers of distributivity. Although distributivity markers can either mark the key (as determiner each does, as in each child saw a lion) or the share (as with binominal each, as in the boys saw a lion each), it has been conjectured that distributivity markers formed through reduplication are always markers of the share, rather than the key. Here we discuss a case that challenges but ultimately vindicates this conjecture. In Mandinka (spoken in Senegambia), reduplicating a nominal with interposition of the morpheme -woo- gives rise to a distributive reading. We investigated the semantics of the X-woo-X construction and found that it behaves as a key-marker, but also as a share-marker. We take these findings to support an analysis on which X-woo-X signals 'simultaneous distributivity', simultaneously marking both key and share.
LiSLab represents at Experiments in Linguistic Meaning 3
Elizabeth Coppock, David Beaver and Emily Richardson made a contribution to the third Experiments in Linguistic Meaning conference entitled "Ordering is not ranking: A study of ordinals vs. degree modifiers in nested definites".
The slides are here.