Symbouletic modality

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Symbouletic modality

Igor Yanovich

MIT / Tübingen

CSSP September 27, 2013

symbouletic < συµβoυλυω‘advise’

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Preview I: new modal flavor

Symbouletics added to [Portner, 2009]’s classification:

modality

kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS SS S

dynamic priority

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

2222 2222 2222 2222 2222 222

LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL LL

L epistemic

(I can swim) (She might be here)

deontic teleological bouletic symbouletic

Igor Yanovich (MIT / Tübingen) Symbouletic modality 2 / 35

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Introduction

Preview II: symbouletics among performatives

I use the framework for performatives by Condoravdi and Lauer, where:

Commissive: EP(SU,p) Directive: EP(SU,EP(y,p)) Imperative: EP(SU,p)

...and newsymbouletic: EP(SU, V

qbest(x,q))→EP(SU,EP(x,p))

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Outline

1 Motivation for introducing symbouletic modality

2 Empirical properties of Russian symbouletic stoit

3 Formal analysis of stoit

4 Conclusion: symbouletics among other modals and other performatives

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Motivating symbouletic modality

Known types of priority modality...

English priority -modals: must,have to,should,ought...

(1) Deontic, objective:

Tax office’s website: Everyoneshould file their taxes by April 15.

(2) Deontic, subjective:

Parent to a child: Youmustgo to bed at nine. (Because I set the rules.) (3) Teleological:

To get to the Polar Bear Park, youhave totake a plane.

(4) Bouletic:

Imusttry this cake. I simply must.

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...and an unknown type

(5) You reallyshould go to that concert!

(6) Rough paraphrase of 5:

I advise you to go to that concert: it would be good for you to go!

5 is not (necessarily) deontic: it’s not about obligations 5 is not (necessarily) teleological: it’s not about goals 5 is not (necessarily) bouletic: it’s not about desires

Instead, 5 is about which course of practical action to choose

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Symbouletic modality: the modality of advice

(7) Sue to Anna: You reallyshould go.

≈SueadvisedAnna to go.

(8) Sue to Anna: (According to the tax office,) youshouldfile by tomorrow.

6=SueadvisedAnna to file by tomorrow.

Matrix symbouletic claims may be described with advise.

Cf.: imperatives may be described withtell to;

performatives likeorderorpromise, with themselves.

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Symbouletic modality is inherently performative

Regular priority modals describe the state of affairs (9) Ann: It’s you who has todo the dishes!

Mary: ^OKYou’re lying! (Today is your turn!)

Imperatives add a new to-do item

different formalizations: Portner, Kaufmann, Condoravdi & Lauer...

(10) Ann: Goto that concert!

Mary: ^#You’re lying! (That’s not what you tell me to do!)

Symbouletics pattern with imperatives: they are self-fulfilling (11) Ann: Youshould go to that concert!

Mary: ^#You’re lying! (That’s not what you are suggesting!)

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Why didn’t we notice symbouletics before?

In English, shouldandought are core modals that can be used as symbouletics. But they are often used with “regular”, non-self-fulfilling modal semantics.

English (’d) better is close to a specialized symbouletic, but has not received much attention (but cf. [Denison and Cort, 2010]).

I am not aware of any studies of symbouletic uses ofbe worth (doing).

Today, we will look in detail at Russianstoit: it can be used as a symbouletic, but not as a neutral priority modal.

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stoit: a modal specialized for advice

(12) ^OK Tebe you.dat

stoit stoit

poexatj go

v to

otpusk.

vacation

‘You should take a vacation.’

(13) * Soglasno according

pravilam, rules

tebe you.dat

stoit stoit

sdatj submit

otčot report

do before

zavtra.

tomorrow

‘According to the rules, you should submit the report before tomorrow.’

(14) Parent to child:Tebe you.dat

stoit stoit

pojti go

spatj.

sleep

OK if the parent mildly suggests the child better goes to sleep, but# if the parent intends to issue an order/describe an obligation.

advice deontic objective deontic subjective teleological

OK * * *

see 12 see 13 see 14 see 17

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Empirical properties of symbouletic STOIT

stoit: a modal specialized for advice

(15) To improve her chances, Mashaoughtto buy a second lottery ticket.

But I wouldn’t advise that.

(16) ^OK Čtoby in.order.to

povysitj improve

svoi her

šansy, chances

Maše Masha.dat

nužno nužno

kupitj buy

vtoroj second loterejnyj

lottery

bilet.

ticket.

No But

ja I

by would

ej to.her

ne not

sovetoval.

advise (17) # Čtoby

in.order.to

povysitj improve

svoi her

šansy, chances

Maše Masha.dat

stoit stoit

kupitj buy

vtoroj second loterejnyj

lottery

bilet.

ticket.

No But

ja I

by would

ej to.her

ne not

sovetoval.

advise

16 withnužno is a neutral, disinterested teleological claim.

17 withstoit can only be advice, and needs to be personally endorsed by the speaker. The first sentence of 17 is fine. It is the continuation that is off.

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Embeddability of stoit

Matrix modal claims with stoitalways constitute advice.

However,stoit can be embedded into sentencesnotproviding advice:

(18) Stoit stoit

li Q

mne I.dat

zapisatjsja register

na for

etot that

klass?

class

‘Should I register for that class (I wonder)?’

(19) Maša Masha

teperj now

dumajet, thinks

što that

Ane Anja

stoilo stoit.Past

tuda there

pojti.

go

‘Now Masha thinks that (according to Masha’s current information) it would have been better (given the circumstances back then) if Anya went there.’

Thus stoitis not a marker of advice. It just has a meaning which ensures that certain assertions with it necessarily become advice.

Similar to performatives:

‘I promise to go’ is performative, ‘I promised to go’ is not.

⇒Igor Yanovich (MIT / Tübingen) Symbouletic modality 12 / 35

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Our analytic strategy for stoit

Premise: stoit has a regular compositional meaning, which in certain circumstances gives rise to performativity.

⇒ common with [Condoravdi and Lauer, 2011], [Eckardt, 2012], etc.

Data collection: we identify the distributional properties ofstoit

Formal analysis: we formulate a compositional meaning that captures the identified properties.

We have already identified the property of Embeddability.

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Properties of stoit: Decision

Letstoit(x, p) stand for “x stoitp”.

Decision: (I)x has the control over whether ap-future will actualize, and (II) it is not yet given thatp will actualize.

(20) Tebe you

stoit stoit

nanjatjsja get-employed

na prep

rabotu.

job

‘Youstoitget a job’

OK if it depends on the addressee to get a job: there are plenty of jobs around, she has relevant qualifications, etc.

#if there aren’t many jobs, it’s the employer’s market, and no qualifications would guarantee getting a place to work.

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Properties of stoit: Decision

Decision II: it is not yet given that p will actualize.

(21) ContextBridge: one can get to the island only by crossing the bridge.

# Čtoby in.order.to

popastj get

na to

ostrov, island,

tebe you.dat

stoit stoit

pojti go

po on

mostu.

bridge

‘To get to the island, youstoitcross the bridge.’

Under embedding,Decisionbehaves as a presupposition:

‘Ann thinks Sue’s cello is expensive’ presupposes ‘Ann thinks Sue has a cello’

‘Ann thinks Suestoitgo’ presupposes ‘Ann thinks Sue has control over going, and it isn’t yet decided whether she’ll go.’

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Properties of stoit: Subject Benefit

Subject benefit: to assertstoit(x,p) properly, the speaker must believe that acting towardsp is of direct benefit to x.

(22) Tebe you

stoit stoit

ispeč bake

pirog.

pie

‘Youstoitbake a pie’

#if the speaker wants to eat a pie, but there’s no direct benefit to the hearer in baking one.

OK if the hearer feels down, and baking a pie always lets him up.

Under attitudes it is the attitude bearer, not the speaker, to whom the belief inSubject Benefitis attributed.

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Properties of stoit: Partial Rejection

With symbouleticshould in 11, the speaker cannot be accused of lying. For stoit, things seem a bit more complicated:

(23) Mary to Ann: Tebe you

stoit stoit

sxoditj go

na to

etot that

koncert.

concert

‘Youstoit go to that concert.’

a. Ann: # Ty you

lžoš:

lie ty you

ne not

predlagaeš suggest

mne me

tuda there

pojti.

go

‘You are lying, you are not suggesting that I go there.’

b. Ann: ^OK Ty you

ošibaješsja:

are.wrong mne I

ne neg

nravitsja like

etot that

dirižor.

conductor

‘You are wrong, I don’t like that conductor.’

c. Ann: ^?Ty you

lžoš:

lie mne I

ne neg

nravitsja like

etot that

dirižor.

conductor

‘You are lying, I don’t like that conductor.’

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Properties of stoit: Partial Rejection

stoit(x,p) introduces two claims: a self-verifying advice claim, and a Subject Benefitclaim.

The advice claim cannot be challenged.

But theSubject Benefit claim can.

Partial Rejection: (I) the act of assertingstoit(x,p) self-verifies that it is an act of providing advice, and cannot be challenged; but (II) that p is good for x is a regular assertion whose truth may be assessed in the usual manner

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Properties of stoit: Endorsement

Endorsement: the speaker has to endorse x’s acting towards p:

suggestions, orders, etc. to not do p directly contradictstoit(x,p).

(17) Čtoby in.order.to

povysitj improve

šansy, chances

Maše Masha.dat

stoit stoit

kupitj buy

vtoroj second

loterejnyj lottery

bilet.

ticket.

‘To improve her chances, Mashastoitbuy a second lottery ticket.’

# No But

ja I

by would

ej to.her

ne not

sovetoval.

advise

‘But I wouldn’t advise her to do that.’

(24) # Tebe you

stoit stoit

ispeč bake

pirog, pie

no but

ne not

delaj do

etogo.

that

‘Youstoitbake a pie, but don’t do that.’

Under attitudes,Endorsementshifts to the attitude’s subject.

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Properties of stoit: Scope over Neg

Scope over Neg: whenstoitoccurs with a clausemate sentential negation, it always scopes over it:

(25) Context: The addressee has a choice of going to Boston, NYC or Philadelphia.

Tebe you.dat

ne not

stoit stoit

exatj go

v to

NYC NYC

=‘You shouldn’t go to NYC’ (>¬)

6=‘It’s not that going to NYC is your best option.’ (¬>)

But there is nothing wrong with a (¬>stoit) meaning as such:

(26) ^OK Eto this

ne not

značit, means

što that

tebe you.dat

stoit stoit

exatj go

v to

NYC, NYC

vedj as

v in

Bostone Boston

tože also interesno.

interesting

‘That does not mean you should go to NYC, because in Boston it’s also fun.’

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Properties of stoit: summary

Decision

Subject Benefit Partial Rejection Endorsement Scope over Neg

Embeddability: see 18 and 19

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Schematic formal analysis of stoit

stoit(x,p):

presupposesdecision(x,p)

assertsbest(x,p)∧advise(SU,x,p),whereSU (fromSUggest-er) is the subject in a matrix context, and the attitude bearer under attitudes

decision(x,p) directly captures Decision: ‘among the possible futures at the evaluation index, there are somep-futures, and it depends on x’s actions whether ap-future or a non-p-future will materialize’.

best(x,p) stands for ‘p is best forx’.

More complicated stuff: advise(SU,x,p); temporal indexing.

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Formal analysis of symbouletic STOIT

Semantics of advice

I formalizeadvise in the framework of [Condoravdi and Lauer, 2012].

(27) advise(SU,x,p) :=

EP(SU,V

qbest(x,q))→EP(SU,EP(x,p)),

whereEP(a,q)stands for ‘ahas an effective preference forq’

Having aneffective preference(EP)forq means that your structure of preferences is such that qis one of your top priorities, and moreover, there are no conflicting priorities of the same rank. Thus if you are rational and have anEP forq, then you will act towardsq.

If youpublicly committedto someEP π, you created a correspondingPEP, and can now be accountable for acting as if you really effectively preferπ.

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Semantics of advice

(27) advise(SU,x,p) :=

EP(SU,V

V

qbest(x,q) is simply “all which is best for x”.

Thus EP(SU,V

qbest(x,q))essentially means “SU prefers what’s best forx, and moreover is going to act to achieve that”.

EP(SU,EP(x,p))= ‘SU has an EP for x to have an EP for p’

This is essentially the meaning of a directive.

It follows from it thatSU will act towards gettingx to act towardsp.

(27) = “ifSU effectively prefers what’s best for x, thenSU also effectively prefers gettingx to work towardsp”

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Semantics of advice

Paraphrasing our advice meaning:

“If your interests were the most important thing for me, I would have tried my best to get you do p”.

It follows that in the speaker’s opinion working towardsp is in the hearer’s best interests.

Introducing a conditional EP of her own, the speaker makes a public announcement that constrains her future actions. If it turns out x’s interests are an EP for her, she would be obliged to try to getx do p.

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Advice among other EP -based meanings

Adapted from [Condoravdi and Lauer, 2011]:

(28) a. I promise that p. commissive

b. [[promise]]=λpλx.EP(x,p) c. [[(28a)]]=EP(sp,p)

d. Asserting (28a) makessp’sEP a public one,PEP. It thus restricts furthers actions bysp: ifsp doesn’t act towardsp, that makes the prior assertion of (28a) false.

(29) a. I order you to q. directive

b. [[order]]=λpλyλx.EP(x,EP(y,p)) c. [[(29a)]]=EP(sp,EP(hearer,q))

d. Asserting (29a) commitssp to anEP for the hearer to commit toq;

ifsp has authority to make orders to the hearer, that is enough to actually constitute an order.

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Advice among other EP -based performative meanings

Commissive(promise): EP(SU,p) Directive(order): EP(SU,EP(y,p)) Imperative: EP(SU,p)

Symbouletic(advice): EP(SU,V

Symbouletics are strictly weaker than directives, and thus may give rise to scalar inference: ifsymb(p), thendir(p)would have been too strong.

E.g. a parent saying “Youstoitgo to sleep” issues smth. less strong than “Go to sleep!”

But in case it is known thatEP(SU,V

qbest(x,q)), symbouletics and directives may collapse.

But if a parent clearly has anEP about what the child does (e.g. if the parent is glowering), “Youstoitgo to sleep” can have the same effect as an explicit directive.

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Formal analysis accounts for stoit’s properties

Decision: encoded in the presupposition Subject Benefit: best(x,p)

Partial Rejection: best(x,p) is never self-verifying, but advise(SU,x,p) often is

Endorsement: advise(SU,x,p) contradicts explicit advice for ¬p Scope over Neg: not follows from the semantics, and should be listed as an idiosyncratic property of stoit

Embeddability: our meaning is embeddable

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Getting the temporal indices right

(19) Maša Masha

teperj now

dumajet, thinks

što that

Ane Anja

stoilo stoit.Past

tuda there

pojti.

go

‘Now Masha thinks that (according to Masha’s current information) it would have been better (given the circumstances back then) if Anya went there.’

Two temporal indices in 19:

tm, the higher index provided by the attitude (here, the present) tloc, the local index provided by the tense onstoit(here, the past) Adding correct indices to our meaning for stoit(x,p):

presupposesdecisiont_loc(x,p) assertsbestt_loc(x,p)∧

(EPt_loc(SU,V

qbestt_loc(x,q))→ ∃t⁰>tloc:EPt_loc(SU,EPt⁰(x,p)))

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Getting the temporal indices right

Assertive component of stoit:

λpλtlocλx.bestt_loc(x,p)∧

∧(EPt_loc(SU,V

qbestt_loc(x,q))→ ∃t_t⁰0>t_loc :EPt_loc(SU,EPt⁰(x,p)))

Assertion of (i) = “što Ane stoilo tuda pojti” from 19:

λwλtm.∃tloc<tm:bestt_loc(a,go)∧

∧(EPt_loc(SU,V

qbestt_loc(a,q))→ ∃t_t⁰0>t_loc :EPt_loc(SU,EPt⁰(a,go)))

Assertion of 19:

“Masha’s belief world-time pairs are a subset of the assertion of (i)^[SU→m]”

Thus in Masha’s belief worldsw⁰ as they are in the presenttm, it was best for Anya to work towardspat past timetloc, and if Masha were to act in Anya’s best interests, she would have committed at pasttloc to getting Anya to form anEP forpat somet⁰.

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Conclusion

Relation of symbouletics to non-modal and modal cousins

The diachronic source of stoitis a verb meaning “to be worth”.

(cf. English “It’s worthq-ing” with the force of a suggestion.)

Semantic reanalysis went through the stage wherestoit(p) conveyed

“p is worth the effort”.

Gradually, suchstoitobtained the force of a suggestion.

The associated semantic change involved the introduction ofEP-s relative to the speaker.

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Relation of symbouletics to non-modal and modal cousins

We can further reinterpret the meaning, introducing into it symbouletic modal baseSmbt(SU) :=V

q∃x :adviset(SU,x,q).

stoit’s assertion then becomesbest_t_loc(x,p)∧Smb_t_loc(SU)⊆p.

At some point, speakers might changeSmbt_loc for another priority modal base, getting a less specialized modal. Just as other priority modals, Smbis relative to the local index (cf. [Hacquard, 2010]).

However, whether specialized symbouletics ever become general priority modals is unclear: more research is needed.

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Conclusion

Relation of symbouletics to non-modal and modal cousins

English ’d betterandbe worthare roughly parallel tostoit, but they are less embeddable when used symbouletically. As stoit, they arose from worth-related expressions.

English should andoughtacquired symbouletic uses after already being (semantic) modals.

⇒ many paths to symbouletic meanings

⇒ multiple ambiguity for symbouletics is not surprising

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Conclusion

Symbouletic modality: new type of priority modality

Differs from other priority modals in having the same potential for performativity as performative verbs

Formally, symbouletic meanings do not have to be in the format of Kratzer’s modal semantics, but they can be so re-conceptualized.

Among performatives, symbouletics are strictly weaker than directives

This is formally captured by conditionalizing the internal directive EP(SU,EP(x,p)with a statement of the form “If I were to work in your best interests (but I’m not saying that I do), then...”

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Acknowledgements

The termsymbouleticwas generously coined by Paul Kiparsky.

I am grateful for the discussions of various issues related to the present work to the audiences at UConn, Stanford and UCLA, and to Paul Bloomfield, Cleo Condoravdi, Kai von Fintel, Sabine Iatridou, Magdalena Kaufmann, Stefan Kaufmann, Paul Kiparsky, Manfred Križ, Sven Lauer, Yael Sharvit, Yakov Testelets, and Sam Wheeler.

The diachrony ofstoitwas studied using the Russian National Corpus, freely available at http://www.ruscorpora.ru/.

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