Abstract
The English pronoun it can anaphorically take on the meaning of a salient generalized quantifier when it occurs in subject position followed by an elided Verb Phrase and (optionally) a VP-level operator. The extent to which theories of pronoun interpretation will have to be altered to take account of this finding will depend on whether the phenomenon is unique to English or part of a crosslinguistic pattern.
Highlights
My chief purpose in this paper is to make an empirical claim: the English pronoun it, in restricted circumstances, can have the semantics of a generalized quantifier
Montague (1973) claimed that all DPs, including pronouns, had the semantics of generalized quantifiers; but that was part of his strategy of maintaining consistency in the allocation of types to syntactic categories by ‘generalizing to the worst case’ (Partee 1996); his pronoun denotations could be arrived at by raising individual variables to the type of generalized quantifiers by means of a type-shifting rule of the kind explored in Partee 1986
I mean that it can have a wide range of generalized quantifier meanings, a range that goes far beyond Russellian definite descriptions and type-shifted individual variables to encompass things like ‘something’ and ‘every towel’
Summary
My chief purpose in this paper is to make an empirical claim: the English pronoun it, in restricted circumstances, can have the semantics of a generalized quantifier. Elbourne interpreted as definite descriptions; and they analysed definite descriptions in a neoRussellian way, as generalized quantifiers This is not the kind of thing I mean either. The basic idea is that nothing in natural language has the semantics of a variable; semantic systems are based, instead, on the combinators used in combinatory logic (Curry and Feys 1958) This naturally excludes the possibility of assimilating pronouns to individual variables. The important point to note for present purposes is that none of the theories described in the last three paragraphs claims that pronouns can have the semantics of generalized quantifiers (with the partial and limited exception of the Russellian definite descriptions posited as pronoun meanings by Neale 1990), and none of the work in these traditions, as far as I know, has analysed data like the ones that follow. I hope that other theorists might be inspired to work on them and improve on what I have here
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
