Abstract
I explore the implications of the Tense Phrase deletion operation known as sluicing (Ross 1969) for the semantic and pragmatic literature on the Free Choice effect (Kamp 1973, von Wright 1969). I argue that the time-honored ‘I don’t know which’-riders on Free Choice sentences, traditionally taken to show that the effect is pragmatic, are sensitive to scope. Careful attention to such riders suggests that these sluices do not show cancellation on Free Choice antecedents in which disjunction scopes narrower than the modal. EARLY ACCESS
Highlights
My purpose in this note is to explore the implications of the Tense Phrase ellipsis operation known as sluicing (Ross 1969) for the semantic and pragmatic literature on the so-called Free Choice effect (Kamp 1973, von Wright 1969) — or “FC” for short
The second is a comparison between disjunctive ignorance sluices like (3b) and ignorance sluices licensed by indefinites in English and Italian
Since the NCN holds that the LF targeted by the sluice cancellation is not the LF that gives rise to Free Choice, both types of position are in tension with the arguments to be put forth here
Summary
My purpose in this note is to explore the implications of the Tense Phrase ellipsis operation known as sluicing (Ross 1969) for the semantic and pragmatic literature on the so-called Free Choice effect (Kamp 1973, von Wright 1969) — or “FC” for short. The second is a comparison between disjunctive ignorance sluices like (3b) and ignorance sluices licensed by indefinites in English and Italian Neither of these preliminary arguments relies on a hypothesis about the internal structure of deleted tense phrases; rather, they show that where there is a lexical way to disambiguate scope, an analogue of the NCN appears to hold. This combination of elements is situated to explain a novel observation about just which ignorance sluices are felt to trigger cancellation. Many authors hold that ‘I don’t know which’-sluices demonstrate cancellation while maintaining the mainstream assumption that disjunction scopes narrow at LF in Free-Choice triggering sentences (Kamp 1978, Zimmermann 2000, Starr 2016, Willer 2017). 2015, 2016, Starr 2016, Willer 2017). Since the NCN holds that the LF targeted by the sluice cancellation is not the LF that gives rise to Free Choice, both types of position are in tension with the arguments to be put forth here
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