Stage-level evaluativity is desiderativity
This paper seeks to explain a systematic alternation in which evaluative predicates (cf. Lasersohn 2005; Stephenson 2007) in English become desiderative predicates in the presence of the
modal would. The alternation is shown in (1).
(1a) Sandra likes John’s watch.
(1b) Cookies are great.
→
→
Sandra would like John’s watch.
Cookies would be great.
In (1a) there is an explicit attitude holder in the subject Sandra. The object of evaluation is the
direct object John’s watch. In (1b) the subject is the object of evaluation cookies. The attitude
holder is understood to be the speaker. Predicates with explicit attitude holders include love,
hate, care for, those with implicit ones include be fabulous, be fantastic, be extraordinary.
We assume that the would-desideratives are similar to the lexical desideratives want and wish.
Following Heim (1992) and Villalta (2008) among others we assume that this desiderative
meaning involves a comparison of some sort between worlds or situations or sets of them such
that those that involve the object of evaluation are higher ranked than those that do not (or precisely the opposite in the case of negative evaluations like hate or be awful). More precisely
we assume what we call the Strict Preference Condition: in the positive cases, minimal extensions of the present situation (i.e. the situation assumed to hold at the time of utterance) that
include the object of evaluation will be strictly preferable in the view of the attitude holder to the
present situation. (Or on Villalta’s reformulation, strictly preferable to all contextually available
alternatives.) What the lexical predicate provides is justification for the preference. Thus a pen
would be useful indicates that a situation that includes a pen is strictly preferable to the current
situation due to the pen’s utility, while an apology would be fair indicates that a situation with
an apology will be preferable in terms of fairness than the current situation.
Both Heim and Villalta’s accounts deal with attitude verbs that take sentential arguments. For
the sake of simplicity we restrict our attention to cases where the argument is a surface nominal.
It would be desirable to have a more uniform semantic treatment of these argument types. We
do not deal directly with this issue here, but tentatively adopt an analysis along the lines of
Schwarz (2008) where all object types are analyzed as propositions. This approach appears to
extend to all the desiderative predicates considered here.
One reason we restrict our attention to nominal objects of evaluation is that a second aspect of
the alternation is only apparent with nominals. Generically interpreted indefinites are infelicitous objects of evaluation but are perfectly fine in the presence of would (2).
(2a) # Sandra likes a watch.
(2b) # A cookie is great.
→
→
Sandra would like a watch.
A cookie would be great.
This infelicity is a familiar property of habitual sentences (e.g. Carlson 1980; Krifka et al. 1995;
Rimell 2004). Rimell gives an analysis which derives the infelicity through interaction between
the scopal properties of the indefinite and a generalization operator over stages of individuals.
The evaluative predicates we are concerned with are statives and so we are not safe in assuming
that a similar generalization operation over stages takes place. Still there are certain conceptual
parallels between habitual and stative generic sentences. Most notable for our purposes is that
both habitual and stative sentences have something less than universal force. Even if John is not
positively disposed toward cookies at every moment, it can still be true that John likes cookies.
Conversely, for the sentence to be true there must be some sufficient number of moments in
which John IS so disposed.
One upshot of this is that when an individual-level predicate is conjoined with a potentially
contradictory stage-level predicate no contradiction arrises (3).
(3) Sandra likes cookies more than cake but Sandra wants cake more than cookies.
(4) # Sandra would like cookies more than cake but Sandra wants cake more than cookies
We take the felicity of generic indefinites in the presence of would as evidence that the desiderative alternants are stage-level (SL) predicates. That a contradiction arises in the minimally
different sentence (4) is further support of this conclusion.
There are thus two things that distinguish the evaluative predicates from their would-bearing
counterparts: a desiderative meaning, and a stage-level interpretation. The analysis that we
will pursue takes the position that these two interpretational changes are inextricably linked.
Desiderativity is what results when an evaluative is stage level.
Would makes an otherwise IL predicate SL. Following Condoravdi (2003) would is analyzed as
non-present-indicative woll. The present-subjunctive would has the denotation in (5).
(5) �wollsub j �w,t = λ P�v,t� .λ ev .∀w� ∈ F(w,t)∃e [The duration of e in w� ⊆ [t, +∞) and P(w� )(e)]
This denotation for woll takes an event argument and requires it to be instantiated at some
interval between the value of the time parameter t and the future. In doing so it restricts the
predicate from accessing any past moments. If we assume that an evaluative predicate requires
some sufficient number of actual moments at which the evaluation held (which therefore must
have occurred before the present time), then restricting the predicate only to present and future
moments as woll does removes this required support. Once sliced into temporal stages the
predicate is SL and so licenses the indefinites in (2).
The object of evaluation is not part of the situation at speech time. The evaluation is left favorably contrasting (in the positive cases) a situation that does not hold with the situation at speech
time. This is the core of the desiderative interpretation, strict preference of one situation over
another. The Strict Preference Condition correctly accounts for the infelicity of desideratives
when the object of desire is part of the situation, (6).
(6) (Situation: John is eating a cookie)
John: # A cookie would be fantastic.
The minimally extended situation s� in (6) which includes the object of desire is identical to the
situation at speech time, s. Since s and s� are indistinguishable strict preference cannot hold.
Want and even wish (contra Iatridou 2000) are more flexible than these would-desideratives in
the strict preference condition, suggesting that it is a necessary property of subjunctive woll but
not of the lexical desideratives.
(7) I live in Bolivia because {I want to/I wish to/*it would be great to} live in Bolivia.
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