{"id":17824,"date":"2026-03-02T06:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T11:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=17824"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T05:37:09","slug":"lf-reading-group-3-4-alma-frischoff-mit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2026\/03\/02\/lf-reading-group-3-4-alma-frischoff-mit\/","title":{"rendered":"LF Reading Group 3\/4 - Alma Frischoff (MIT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>Speaker: <\/strong> Alma Frischoff (MIT)<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Title: <\/strong>Non-maximal readings of definite plurals with positive and negative predicates<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Time: <\/strong>Wednesday, March 4th, 1pm - 2pm<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Location: <\/strong>32-D461<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><strong>Abstract: <\/strong>I discuss the availability of non-maximal readings of sentences with definite plurals, focusing on antonym\u00a0pairs of predicates. First, I draw attention to the observation that antonyms like <i>clean<\/i>\/<i>dirty <\/i>and\u00a0<i>healthy\/sick<\/i> differ in whether they favor existential or universal interpretations, particularly when combined with definite plurals (e.g., Krifka 1996; Yoon 1996). Second, I point out that presupposition triggers like <i>stop<\/i>\u00a0and <i>start<\/i> exhibit similar patterns in both their presupposed and asserted content. I argue that if these pairs are analyzed as consisting of a predicate and its negation (at least at some abstract level), both phenomena can be understood in terms of the asymmetry between positive and negative sentences in the availability of non-maximal interpretations, as observed by Bar-Lev (2021). Therefore, such an analysis points to a broader, systematic asymmetric pattern of non-maximality, sharpening the question of whether this pattern follows from the mechanism deriving non-maximality or from more general cognitive tendencies.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaker: Alma Frischoff (MIT) Title: Non-maximal readings of definite plurals with positive and negative predicates Time: Wednesday, March 4th, 1pm - 2pm Location: 32-D461 \u00a0 Abstract: I discuss the availability of non-maximal readings of sentences with definite plurals, focusing on antonym\u00a0pairs of predicates. First, I draw attention to the observation that antonyms like clean\/dirty and\u00a0healthy\/sick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17826,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17824\/revisions\/17826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}