Abstract

This paper presents a novel treatment of quantified concealed questions (CQs), examining different types of NP predicates and deriving the truth conditions for pair-list and set readings. A generalization is proposed regarding the distribution of the two readings, namely that pair-list readings arise from CQs with relational head nouns, whereas set readings arise from CQs whose head nouns are not (or no longer) relational. It is shown that set readings cannot be derived under the ‘individual concept’ approach, one of the most influential analyses of CQs on the market. The paper offers a solution to this problem. It shows that once we adopt an independently motivated view of traces—according to which traces are copies with descriptive content (Fox, Linguist Inq 30:157–196, 1999; Fox, Linguist Inq 33:63–96, 2002)—nothing else needs to be postulated to derive set readings within an individual-concept-based analysis. Thus, what seemed to be a challenge for this type of analysis turns out to be an argument in its favor.

Highlights

  • Concealed questions (CQs) are DPs whose interpretation can be paraphrased by an embedded identity question

  • The goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of quantified concealed questions (CQs) which derives the truth conditions of pair-list and set readings

  • Let’s take note of the fact that the analysis just sketched here requires the NP-CQ capital to denote a predicate of individual concepts, an assumption that was not required in the case of definite CQs

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Summary

Introduction

Concealed questions (CQs) are DPs whose interpretation can be paraphrased by an embedded identity question. I propose that the ambiguity of sentences with 2-place NP-CQs follows from the fact that relational nouns, just like transitive verbs, can occur as either transitive (2-place: \e\e,t[[) or intransitive (1-place: \e,t[) predicates (cf Barker 1995; Partee 1983/1997, a.o.), with the first type generating pair-list readings and the second set readings. I start by showing that the version of the IC-approach provided by Heim (1979) and Romero (2005) to account for definite CQs can be extended to quantified CQs with functional nouns (pair-list readings). This is implemented by allowing quantification over meaningfully sorted concepts (cf Nathan 2006).

Background
Definite CQs as individual concepts
Quantified CQs and pair-list readings: functional nouns
Quantification over concepts
Nathan’s IC-shifter
Deriving pair-list readings with functional nouns
A note on restrictive modification
Set readings and nonrelational NPs
Set readings with indefinite CQs
Toward an account of set readings
The copy theory of movement
Deriving set readings
A unified account of quantified and indefinite CQs
Pair-list readings under the amended IC-approach
A problem: pair-list readings with nonfunctional nouns
Failure of the IC-shifter
The PAIR-shifter
Why the IC-shifter cannot be eliminated
Set readings with temporally intensional verbs
Set readings with nonfactive verbs
Conclusions
Full Text
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