Narrow Scope Readings Research Articles

Event plurality & quantifier scope across clause boundaries

Legend has it that quantifiers cannot scope out of finite clauses. But whileislands for quantifier raising might exist, finite clauses are not that: We identifya novel environment which productively facilitates scoping universal quantifiersout of embedded clauses, involving the manipulation of event structure. With thehelp of the perfect on an embedding verb and certain adverbials that presuppose abuildup towards a result state (by noon, eventually, at long last), embedded universalquantifiers can more readily take extrawide scope. We describe, account for, anddiscuss restrictions to this effect, and conclude that scoping quantifiers out of finiteclauses is not banned by syntactic constraints, although context or processing mightfavor narrow scope readings.

Information Structure and Scope Interactions: Disjunction Wide Scope Induced by Focus

In this paper we investigate the scopal reading of disjunctions in French negative sentences with pre-schoolers. We posit that the French disjunctor “ou” does not fit the traditional disjunction PPI/non-PPI dichotomy according to which a wide scope is taken by a PPI disjunction and a narrow scope when the disjunction is not a PPI. We hypothesized that focus could be a succesful scopal manipulator. Using Truth Value Judgment Tasks (TVJT), we tested French pre-schoolers' scopal reading of negated disjunctions in a neutral prosody condition and with prosodic focus on the disjunctor in a between subject design. We found that as predicted, prosodic focus often enduced participants to adopt a disjunction wide scope reading whereas a disjunction narrow scope reading was favored in the neutral prosody condition. This confirmed our hypothesis that focus can manipulate disjunction scope paramaters. It also shows that, when the disjunction is focalised, children have access to the disjunction wide scope reading earlier than previously thought. Finally, we can conclude that the distinction between PPI-disjunctor vs. non-PPI disjunctor languages needs to be more fine-grained.

Scope marking and prosody in Hungarian

The paper presents an analysis of the results of three perception experiments that aimed to investigate the scope of postverbal quantifiers in Hungarian. These experiments found no correlations between wide vs. narrow scope readings of postverbal quantifiers and their stressed vs. unstressed pronunciations, contradicting a widespread assumption. In addition to the dominance of scope interpretation that corresponds to the linear order of constituents, previously unnoticed effects of the syntactic or thematic role of the postverbal quantifier and of the type of preverbal operator in the same sentence were found. These might indicate a more complex interaction of several factors or point to a greater role of extra-grammatical effects in determining the scope of quantifiers in Hungarian than previously assumed. The paper also addresses methodological issues that arise in the course of eliciting scope judgments experimentally.

Conditionals, Counterfactuals, and Rational Reasoning: An Experimental Study on Basic Principles

We present a unified approach for investigating rational reasoning about basic argument forms involving indicative conditionals, counterfactuals, and basic quantified statements within coherence-based probability logic. After introducing the rationality framework, we present an interactive view on the relation between normative and empirical work. Then, we report a new experiment which shows that people interpret indicative conditionals and counterfactuals by coherent conditional probability assertions and negate conditionals by negating their consequents. The data support the conditional probability interpretation of conditionals and the narrow-scope reading of the negation of conditionals. Finally, we argue that coherent conditional probabilities are important for probabilistic analyses of conditionals, nonmonotonic reasoning, quantified statements, and paradoxes.

Russian Negative Exclamatives in a Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Relying upon the data of Russian and other languages, this paper discusses various types of negation in exclamatives. It argues that morphological negation is felicitous in exclamatives. However, sentential negation exhibits diversity. Its wide scope variety seems to be absolutely ungrammatical in all the languages under consideration. On the contrary, its narrow scope variety is subject to cross-linguistic variation: some languages exhibit the felicitousness of narrow scope readings in gradable adjectival and quantity exclamatives. Finally, expletive negation makes for a criterion of rhetorical exclamatives.

Negation, tense and NPIs in Jordanian Arabic

The locus of negation above and below TP has been identified as a parametric choice for language in Ouhalla (1990, 1991) but as options for any language to display semantic and syntactic effects in (Zanuttini, 1997; Ramchand, 2001; Zeijlstra, 2004). I argue in favor of the latter by giving evidence from Jordanian Arabic. Specifically, bipartite negation is between vP and TP while single negation is above TP. Syntactic and prosodic difference between the two patterns are taken as evidence for positing a different locus for each negation pattern. Crucially, I give semantic evidence that each negation type displays different scope readings. Single negation allows for only a wide scope reading of the time adverbial while bipartite negation allows for a narrow scope reading and may allow the wide scope reading. This is instantiated by the proposal that single negation binds a tense variable while bipartite negation binds an event variable. The explanatory power of the two negatives analysis is scrutinized under the empirical breadth produced by the interaction between the two negatives, the Negative Polarity Items and Negative Concord Items. The outcome of the analyses reflect explanatory adequacy for previously reported and new empirical observations.

汉语量词的窄域释义

窄域释义现象实际是句法推演过程中时间演算带来的附加现象。核查过程中只有形式特征发生移位，词汇、语义特征呈显性滞留于原位置，A-语链中语迹的语义解释依赖方向自由式词义传递机制；在语法的解释系统中不存在效应消除过程，移位总是从低处移往高处结构统制位置；化名词词组的强/弱分类对于该问题的解释处于从属地位，结构中的位置有无标记性特征则变得至关重要。加入了标记性结构位置理论后，以约束关系为基础的释义方法指出辖域冻结现象可以从对窄域释义的分析中推导出来。 The narrow scope reading effects of quantifiers are in fact epiphenomena of derivational timing. There is no undoing process in interpretive system of grammar, given that chains are formed either by moving an element lower in the position of tree to a higher position and stay put thereby or by moving only formal features [FF] of a element, leaving the element hosting the feature of [SF] behind overtly. This stresses again that movements always take place to a c-commanding position. Narrow scope reading of quantifiers that takes place in A-chains is felicitated by means of Direction-Free Semantic Transmitting Device. In the interpretation, the classification of quantifiers is reduced to an ancillary status while the fact that whether a position is syntactically marked becomes crucial. Augmented with the theory of marked syntactic positions, this interpretive approach based on the binding relations accounts that the scope freezing phenomenon is actually a derived fact.

Scopeless quantity words in Shona

In Shona (Bantu, Zimbabwe), bare plurals and bare singulars seem to have different scope possibilities with respect to a class of modifiers which I term “scopeless quantity words” (including numerals, shoma ‘(a) few’, and ose ‘all’). I argue that this is due to two factors. First, the scopeless quantity words are intersective modifiers rather than quantifying determiners, so that DPs containing them denote entities rather than generalised quantifiers. Second, transitive sentences involving plural arguments are usually interpreted using the **-operator, which gives a cumulative reading; the apparent wide and narrow scope readings of bare plurals are both subcases of this reading, but a narrow scope reading for bare singulars cannot be subsumed by the cumulative reading. I also discuss the scope behaviour of a quantifying determiner, oga-oga ‘every’, which shows a subject/object asymmetry: in subject position, it appears to show the expected scopal ambiguity, but in object position, it appears to have the same readings as a scopeless quantity word; I argue that this is because of the location of existential closure. This adds to the evidence suggesting that many words giving quantity are intersective modifiers rather than quantifying determiners or adverbial quantifiers.

Disambiguating the scope of negation by prosodic cues in three varieties of German

Two perception experiments were conducted with subjects from Kiel, Düsseldorf and Vienna to investigate the role prosody plays (a) in resolving scope of negation ambiguities and (b) in judging the strength of phrasal breaks in German. The prosodic means tested were pause, intonation contour and peak alignment. Results reveal that the relevance of the cues varies depending on the task: for the (semantic) scope disambiguation task, intonation contour proves to be the most decisive factor, whereas presence of pause turns out to be most influential for the (metalinguistic) phrasing task. This result implies that the question of how German listeners resolve scope ambiguities cannot simply be attributed to the presence or absence of a phrasal break between a main and a subordinate clause. It rather seems to depend on a more general perception of ‘cohesion’ between the two clauses as indicated by prosodic means. Flat hat contours and late peak alignment patterns lead to a higher level of cohesion and an increase in wide scope interpretations, whereas pointed hats with early peak accents are typical of narrow scope readings. The results further reveal a significant difference between the varieties due to an increased number of narrow scope readings in Viennese listeners. Since Viennese German displays later peaks than Northern varieties, this outcome suggests that Viennese subjects interpret (late) peaks as earlier than listeners from Kiel and Düsseldorf.

On The Absence of Scope Reconstruction in Tough Subject A-Chains

On The Absence of Scope Reconstruction in <i>Tough</i> Subject A-Chains

A Descriptivist Refutation of Kripke's Modal Argument and of Soames's Defence

AbstractThis article systematically challenges Kripke's modal argument and Soames's defence of this argument by arguing that, just like descriptions, names can take narrow or wide scopes over modalities, and that there is a big difference between the wide scope reading and the narrow scope reading of a modal sentence with a name. Its final conclusions are that all of Kripke's and Soames's arguments are untenable due to some fallacies or mistakes; names are not “rigid designators”; if there were rigid designators, description(s) could be rigidified to refer fixedly to objects; so names cannot be distinguished in this way from the corresponding descriptions. A descriptivist account of names is still correct; and there is no justification for Kripke's theory of rigid designation and its consequences.

Quantificational topics: A scopal treatment of exceptional wide scope phenomena (review)

Reviewed by: Quantificational topics: A scopal treatment of exceptional wide scope phenomena Luisa Martí Quantificational topics: A scopal treatment of exceptional wide scope phenomena. By Cornelia Endriss. (Studies in linguistics and philosophy 86.) Dordrecht: Springer, 2009. Pp. 308. ISBN 9789048123025. $189 (Hb). Quantificational topics is based on Cornelia Endriss’s (now Ebert) 2007 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Potsdam. The book develops a detailed analysis of the recalcitrant problem posed by exceptional wide-scope indefinites, that is, indefinites that take scope outside of syntactic domains that prevent it in the typical case. The main observation put forth in the book is that, in German, the indefinites that take exceptional wide scope are the ones that can be sentence topics. The set of indefinites that are sentence-topicable consists of singular and plural indefinites (ein ‘a’, manche ‘some’), bare numerals, and einige ‘several’; these are all and only the indefinites that can take exceptional wide scope in this language. The core idea is that exceptional wide scope is a side effect of sentence topicality (cf. Cresti 1995, Portner & Yabushita 2001). A detailed implementation of sentence topicality is proposed that has this effect (Ch. 6). Particularly important is an understanding of what it means for a quantifier to establish a sentence topic—it involves existential quantification over minimal witness sets. An important argument throughout the book is that scope is scope: genuine, plain wide-scope readings of indefinites are shown to be true and distinct scope readings (Ch. 3), and not amenable to treatments as ‘pseudo’ scope (Ch. 4). Consider 1 (capitals indicate intonational sentence-topic marking, usually a rising tone). 1. Wenn EIN Dozent zur Party kommt, gehe ich sofort wieder. if some lecturer to.the party comes go I immediately again ‘If some lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately.’ If-clauses are islands for scope. Yet, a quantifier phrase containing an intonationally topic-marked quantifier not interpreted contrastively takes obligatory scope outside of them (E considers other islands as well). If the indefinite determiner were to lack this type of intonation, only a narrow-scope reading would be possible (local scope phenomena, that is, scopal relations inside of a single clause, are not considered in the book). E shows that in German it is possible to correctly isolate the class of sentence-topicable indefinites with the help of independently motivated syntactic tests (Ch. 2). Tests for sentence topicality can vary, of course, from language to language, though E argues that some of the traditional tests for sentence topicality are not reliable. Following Reinhart (1981, 2004), E sides with the view that sentence topics are not necessarily familiar, specific, or given, so indefinites make possible sentence topics. E takes sentence topics to be addresses for context updates (Reinhart 1981) and reasons that only those quantifiers for which a proper address can be derived will be able to serve as sentence topics, quantifiers not being the sort of items that constitute, just by themselves, proper addresses. A quantifier gives rise to a proper address only if its minimal witness set(s) (see appendix A.1.2 for the definitions) preserve meaning and anaphoric relations when used as proxy for the quantifier—this is the topic condition. The process of creating a proper address is understood as a separate speech act. The intuition behind the condition is that, when a proxy is used for a quantifier, [End Page 908] truth conditions and anaphoric possibilities should be preserved. The topic condition is reproduced in 2 below (238).1 2. A quantifier G is topicable if, for all sets Y, a. ∃P [MW(P, G) & λR.R(Y))(F(P))] ≡ (λR. R(Y))(G), and b. all anaphoric possibilities which are available in c + (λR. R(Y))(G) remain available in c + ∃P [MW(P, G) & λR.R(Y))(F(P))]. Minimal witness sets of the quantifier three linguists are sets of linguists of cardinality three. This quantifier passes the topic condition because a sentence like three linguists came is truth-conditionally equivalent to ‘there is a set of three linguists and its members came’ (2a), and because all of the anaphoric possibilities available in it remain available in ‘there...

The scope of indefinites: an experimental investigation

This paper reports on an experimental investigation of the scope of English a indefinites and a certain indefinites. Three experiments test whether native English speakers allow indefinites to scope out of syntactic islands, and to take intermediate as well as widest scope. The experimental findings indicate that a indefinites and a certain indefinites have different ranges of interpretations available to them. Experiment 1 shows that a certain indefinites, unlike a indefinites, cannot be interpreted in the scope of an intensional operator, and further shows that functional readings are available to a certain indefinites but not to a indefinites. Experiment 2 focuses on the availability of long-distance readings of indefinites out of scope islands, and shows that the most accessible reading for a certain indefinites is the widest-scope reading, while the most accessible reading for a indefinites is the narrow-scope reading. Experiment 3 shows that modification of an a indefinite by a relative clause does not facilitate long-distance readings, as long as it does not restrict the domain to a singleton set. Overall, these findings are consistent with the proposal of Schwarz (Proceedings of the Thirteenth Amsterdam Colloquium, ILCC, University of Amsterdam, 192–197, 2001) that a certain indefinites and a indefinites are derived by different semantic mechanisms. The behavior of a certain indefinites is shown to be consistent with the contextually determined choice function approach Kratzer (Events in grammar, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 165–196, 1998) and the singleton indefinite approach Schwarzschild (J Semant 19:289–314, 2002). In contrast, a indefinites are most compatible with a purely quantificational approach, contra much recent theoretical literature. These findings highlight the value of conducting experimental studies testing the predictions of semantic theories.

An Experimental Study on the Scope of (Un)modified Indefinites

AbstractThis paper reports on three experiments which investigate the availability of long-distance scope for different types of indefinite expressions, in order to test the predictions of different semantic theories of indefinite scope. The main findings of the experiments are: (i) local, narrow-scope readings are preferred for a indefinites, whereas long-distance scope is preferred for a certain indefinites; and (ii) long-distance scope is more readily available to bare one indefinites than to modified at least/exactly one indefinites, but modified numeral indefinites nevertheless allow long-distance scope more readily than universal quantifiers. While the first finding is consistent with theories that link scope and epistemic specificity (since a certain indefinites are often analyzed as markers of specificity), the second finding suggests that long-distance scope is also available to non-specific, quantificational indefinites. It is shown that the findings are problematic for choice-function theories of indefinite scope, and are more consistent with long-distance scopeshifting, or with accounts that link scope and topicality.

The Scope of the Negative Loʾ in Biblical Hebrew (review)

Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 362 Reviews the term corpus, he does not overtly state a commitment to a corpus linguistics approach to Hebrew Text. However, his approach does offer a corpus of “finite size” for “sampling and representativeness” which comprises texts that might be termed “standard reference.” Should these texts be compiled into “machine readable form,” the basic requirements for a corpus linguistics approach would be in place. In this regard, it is claimed that a well-chosen corpus “provides a yardstick by which successive studies can be measured…new results can be directly compared with already published results without need for recomputation” (see http://bowlandfiles.lancs.ac.uk /monkey/ihe/linguistics/contents.htm ). Elizabeth R. Hayes Wolfson College, Oxford Oxford, England erussell.hayes@gmail.com THE SCOPE OF THE NEGATIVE LO} IN BIBLICAL HEBREW. By F. P. J. Snyman. Acta Academica Supplementum 3. Pp. vii + 315. Bloemfontein: UFS-SASOL Library, 2004. Paper. Snyman offers an exhaustive, computer-assisted study of the syntax (distribution ) and semantics (scope) of the Biblical Hebrew particle lo} ‘not’ to replace the “inadequate and incomplete” treatment thereof in existing grammars (p. 38). The study is a welcome contribution on this account. To describe adequately the “syntactic richness of this negative element” (p. 38), however, he invokes the full panoply of theoretical devices of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program, the dominant approach to generative grammar. As I suggest below, the full complexity of this theoretical framework is probably not required to analyze the syntactic phenomenon and may serve instead as a barrier to Hebraists together with the 300-page length. Because Snyman invokes the latest theorizing on explanatory adequacy within generative grammar (cognitive psychology), he is immediately embroiled in the difficulty of studying the tacit knowledge of native speakers of Biblical Hebrew. He suggests that “the adequacy of the description will be proportionate to the amount and variety of the material upon which it is based” (p. 2), and accordingly extends the scope of the study to the entire “huge corpus” of Biblical Hebrew, further invoking “the remarkable uniformity of the BH text” (p. 3). In terms of methodology, we might reasonably question this assumption of “uniformity.” On the one hand, the Biblical Hebrew corpus can readily be divided into five to ten sub-corpora by dialect markers (e.g., see V. DeCaen, Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 363 Reviews “Hebrew Linguistics and Biblical Criticism: A Minimalist Programme.” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 3 [2000–2001] and republished in Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures, ed. E. Ben Zvi, 2006). On the other hand, we also know that the syntax of negation is especially liable to change; an obvious example is the history of negation in Modern English (see further, e.g., L. Horn, A Natural History of Negation [Stanford: CSLI, 2001]). The study is initially motivated with two examples of negation: Deut 7:7 and Exod 20:10. Snyman concludes that the possibility of reading the negation with wide or narrow scope “could lead to great confusion as to the exact meaning” (p. 6). In Deut 7:7, the adverbial phrase is negated (“not because ”), as the majority of translations confirm; the NIV and GNB suggest, however, that the negation has scope over the entire verse (“did not set, did not choose”). I would be prepared to argue that the wide-scope reading is not available. Similarly, the case of Exod 20:10 appears to be more an artifact of rendering into Germanic languages an awkward apposition under wide scope than a real example of a possible narrow-scope reading. However, there are other significant problems in the analysis of Biblical Hebrew negation that do merit the study that they receive in sections 5.8 and 6.5.2 (discussed below). Chapter 2, which is arguably two chapters in one, is a parade example of methodological rigour. In the first part, he describes in detail the morphological and prosodic variants of lo} to eliminate potential noise. He also flags twenty examples of qere/kethib but, curiously, fails to remove these from the database—as linguistic rigour dictates. In the second part, he offers an overview of previous treatments (both grammars and dictionaries), admittedly not exhaustive but a sufficient “basis as...

In Defense of a Quantificational Account of Definite DPs

Two types of arguments support a quantificational view of definite DPs. First, definite DPs share properties with other quantified expressions. In particular, they pattern together in antecedent-contained deletion constructions, they show weak crossover effects, and at least some of them interact scopally with other quantified expressions. Second, the apparent failure of (some) definite DPs to interact scopally with other quantified expressions and to exhibit island effects stems from two properties of definite DPs: they are all principal filters, and the witness set of singular definite DPs is a singleton. These two properties have the effect of rendering the wide and narrow scope readings of definite DPs indistinguishable.

An Experimental Study on Child Comprehension of Spanish Indefinites and Bare Singulars

Since the work of Carlson (1977), it is impossible to treat the bare plural dogs in English as the counterpart of the indefinite singular a dog. Whereas the indefinite singular in object position allows both wideand narrow-scope readings with respect to operators such as negation, bare plurals are always under the scope of negation. As is well known, Spanish has an indefinite singular that is identical in form to the number one (un auto ‘a/one car’). Moreover, in a more restricted but productive set of contexts, many dialects of Spanish allow bare singulars in object position. Much like bare plurals in English, Spanish bare singulars under negation (and other operators) only allow a narrow-scope interpretation, as illustrated in (1a). In (1a) the bare singular is within the scope of negation, and this sentence can only mean that the boy didn’t buy any dogs. The indefinite singular in (1b), on the other hand, has three possible interpretations: the indefinite can have a narrow scope (the boy didn’t buy any dogs), a wide scope (there is a particular dog the boy didn’t buy), or a number reading (the boy didn’t buy one dog, he bought more, two or three). In English, the latter reading is not possible with the indefinite a.

New approach to the scope of contrastive topics

This paper proposes a new strategy for accounting for the narrow scope readings of quantificational contrastive topics in Hungarian, which is based on a consideration of the types of questions that declaratives with such contrastive topics can be uttered as partial or complete congruent answers to. The meaning of the declaratives with contrastive topics will be represented with the help of the structured meaning approach to matching questions proposed in Krifka 2002.&#x0D;

Case and the Parameterization of Scope Ambiguities

This paper argues for a version of Aoun and Li's account of quantifier-scope ambiguities, and for treating the English/Chinese contrast in ambiguity patterns as a difference in how Case is assigned to subjects: under government (Chinese) vs. agreement (English). I argue that the Copy Theory of movement allows the prediction of ambiguity in Someone must have left and Everyone doesn't like squid; English subjects in Spec,IP optionally delete at LF, allowing their VP-internal copies to adjoin below must/n't (giving the subject's narrow scope reading). But subjects with governed Case cannot delete, so the Chinese equivalents are unambiguous. The same distinction underlies the Chinese/English difference for (e.g.) Everyone recommended a book. English subjects, with agreement Case, allow objects to raise over them at LF; but Chinese subjects, with governed Case, block objects from raising, preventing ambiguity. Evidence for this account comes from correct predictions about ambiguity in sentences with double objects or PPs; correlations with ECP phenomena; and the fact that Japanese, Korean, and Persian behave (largely) like Chinese.

Decompositional composition: The semantics of scope ambiguities and ?bracketing paradoxes?

The assumption that attribute phrases like nuclear physicist constitute a bracketing paradox which may be resolved by special rules such as head rules, rebracketing rules, and productive backformation has gone unchallenged for more than a decade. This paper argues that such structural solutions do not work, since the same scope problems are reflected in phrases based on underived words with no morphological bracketing at all. In their place, a solution based on decompositional or featural composition is proposed, in which attributes compose semantically not with the full set of features of their head, but rather with only one particular feature. This solution reduces the wide and narrow scope readings of attribute phrases to a question of which feature is selected, in effect making all attribute composition the same and obviating the distinction between wide and narrow scope readings of attribute phrases.