Vanilla rules

The “no ice cream” construction

verfasst von: Felix Frühauf, Hadil Karawani, Todor Koev, Natasha Korotkova, Doris Penka, Daniel Skibra
Abstract: This paper is about what we call Deontically-flavored Nominal Constructions (DNCs) in English, such as 'No ice cream' or 'Dogs on leash only'. DNCs are often perceived as commands and have been argued to be a type of non-canonical imperative, much like root infinitives in German or Russian. We argue instead that DNCs at their core are declaratives that cite a rule but can be used performatively in the right context. We propose that DNCs contain an elided deontic modal, i.e., 'allowed', whose presence explains their distributional restrictions and interpretational properties. Among other things, we speculate on the licensing conditions of DNCs (the presence of 'only' or the negative determiner 'no'), suggesting that these are tied to the properties of discourses in which rules can be used naturally.
Organisationseinheit(en): Deutsches Seminar
Externe Organisation(en): Universität Konstanz
Utrecht University
Typ: Aufsatz in Konferenzband
Band: 27
Seiten: 209-227
Publikationsdatum: 2023
Publikationsstatus: Veröffentlicht
Elektronische Version(en): https://doi.org/10.18148/sub/2023.v27.1065 (Zugang: Offen)

BibTeX

@inproceedings{d1a64e7d513f40acaafe5fe4b570d9f4,
title = "Vanilla rules: The “no ice cream” construction",
abstract = "This paper is about what we call Deontically-flavored Nominal Constructions (DNCs) in English, such as 'No ice cream' or 'Dogs on leash only'. DNCs are often perceived as commands and have been argued to be a type of non-canonical imperative, much like root infinitives in German or Russian. We argue instead that DNCs at their core are declaratives that cite a rule but can be used performatively in the right context. We propose that DNCs contain an elided deontic modal, i.e., 'allowed', whose presence explains their distributional restrictions and interpretational properties. Among other things, we speculate on the licensing conditions of DNCs (the presence of 'only' or the negative determiner 'no'), suggesting that these are tied to the properties of discourses in which rules can be used naturally.",
author = "Felix Fr{\"u}hauf and Hadil Karawani and Todor Koev and Natasha Korotkova and Doris Penka and Daniel Skibra",
note = "{\textcopyright} 2023, Felix Fr{\"u}hauf, Hadil Karawani, Todor Koev, Natasha Korotkova, Doris Penka, and Daniel Skibra; Sinn und Bedeutung 27 ; Conference date: 14-09-2022 Through 16-09-2022",
year = "2023",
doi = "10.18148/sub/2023.v27.1065",
language = "English",
volume = "27",
pages = "209--227",
editor = "Maria Onoeva and Anna Sta{\v n}kov{\'a} and Radek {\v S}im{\'i}k",
booktitle = "Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 27",
publisher = "Charles University",
address = "Czech Republic",
}