Abstract
Because (of) is ambiguous between a ‘reason’ and a ‘plain cause’ interpretation. Presenting a semantic analysis within the framework of Discourse Representation Theory, I argue that because (of) always denotes a causal relation between causing facts and caused entites of various sorts and that its interpretational variance is dependent on the ontological nature of the caused entity. Finally, I point to a difference between sentential-complement because and nominal-complement because of with regard to their interaction with modals. Whereas both because and because of may outscope e.g. deontic necessity modals, only because may outscope epistemic modal operators.
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Solstad, T. (2010). Some New Observations on ‘Because (of)’. In: Aloni, M., Bastiaanse, H., de Jager, T., Schulz, K. (eds) Logic, Language and Meaning. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6042. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14287-1_44
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14287-1_44
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