Scope Ambiguity Research Articles

Competition During the Processing of Quantifier Scope Ambiguities: Evidence from Eye Movements during Reading

We investigated the processing of sentences containing a quantifier scope ambiguity, such as Kelly showed a photo to each critic, which is ambiguous between the indefinite phrase (a photo) having one or many referents. Ambiguity resolution requires the computation of relative quantifier scope, with either a photo or each critic taking wide scope, thereby determining the number of referents. Using eye tracking, we established that multiple factors, including the grammatical function and surface linear order of quantified phrases, along with their lexical characteristics, interact during the processing of relative quantifier scope, with conflict between factors incurring a processing cost. We discuss the results in terms of theoretical accounts attributing sentence-processing difficulty to either reanalysis (e.g., Fodor, 1982) or competition between rival analyses (e.g., Kurtzman & MacDonald, 1993).

The Elusive Scope of Descriptions

AbstractSentences with more than one quantifier often exhibit ambiguities. For example, ‘Every miner went to a meeting’ has two readings depending on whether we take there to be one meeting that every miner went to or (possibly) different meetings corresponding to each miner. This paper discusses the theory that such ambiguities are directly akin to quantifier scope ambiguities in logic. Certain syntactic and semantic evidence suggests that with indefinite and definite descriptions, such as ‘a meeting’ and ‘the president’, these ambiguities are better understood in some other way, either as being due to quantifier domain restrictions or choice functions. This paper discusses the major considerations in this debate by way of an introduction to the type of research being conducted at the intersection of linguistics and philosophy of language.

The scope interpretation of complex predicates in Japanese: A unified lexicalist analysis

This paper proposes a unified analysis of adverb scope and quantifier scope phenomena in a lexicalist approach to complex predicates. I first observe that the availability of scope ambiguity for adverbs and for quantifiers always coincides for a given type of complex predicate, drawing on data from different kinds of compound verb constructions, the verbal noun-taking predicates and the nominative object construction. The challenge for a unified treatment in lexicalist frameworks comes from the fact that syntactic structures cannot be taken as the locus for representing the scope of adverbs and quantifiers, unlike in derivational frameworks where such an analysis is the most natural. Thus, a previous lexicalist analysis by Manning, Sag & Iida (1999) makes use of completely different mechanisms to account for adverb scope and quantifier scope, failing to capture the close parallel between them. I remedy this problem of Manning et al.'s analysis by proposing a unified account of adverb scope and quantifier scope that crucially makes use of a slightly enriched semantic representation explicitly encoding the property of mono-/biclausality with respect to scopal phenomena.

NATIVELIKE BIASES IN GENERATION OF Wh-QUESTIONS BY NONNATIVE SPEAKERS OF JAPANESE

A number of studies of second language (L2) sentence processing have investigated whether ambiguity resolution biases in the native language (L1) transfer to superficially similar cognate structures in the L2. When transfer effects are found in such cases, it is difficult to determine whether they reflect surface parallels between the languages or the operation of more abstract processing mechanisms. Wh-questions in English and Japanese present a valuable test case for investigating the relation between L1 and L2 sentence processing. Native speakers (NSs) of English and Japanese both show strong locality biases in processing wh-questions, but these locality biases are realized in rather different ways in the two languages, due to differences in word order and scope marking. Results from a sentence generation study with NSs of Japanese and advanced English-speaking L2 learners of Japanese show that the L2 learners show a strongly nativelike locality bias in the resolution of scope ambiguities for in situ wh-phrases, despite the fact that the closest analogue of such an interpretation is impossible in English. This indicates that L2 learners are guided by abstract processing mechanisms and not just by superficial transfer from the L1.This research was supported in part by grants to Colin Phillips from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0196004) and the Human Frontier Science Program (RGY-0134). We are also grateful to Ellen Lau, Kaori Ozawa, Rozz Thornton, and Masaya Yoshida for valuable discussions of the study, to Deborah Eastman, Gretchen Jones, Eiko Miura, Yoshiko Mori, and Lindsay Yotsukura for assistance with recruiting the Japanese learners, and to John Matthews for assistance with the testing of the Japanese NS group.

The variability debate: More statistics, more linguistics

We respond to critical comments and consider alternative statistical and syntactic analyses of our target paper which analyzed comprehension scores of Broca’s aphasic patients from multiple sentence types in many languages, and showed that Movement but not Complexity or Mood are factors in the receptive deficit of these patients. Specifically, we do the following: (a) We show how group analyses such as ours are valid and critically important, and then discuss apparent statistical discrepancies between our analysis and others’. (b) We provide new syntactic arguments in support of our decision to categorize passive sentences in German and Dutch as − Movement in the context of Broca’s aphasia. These arguments serve to underscore an intriguing correlation between German/Dutch and English: On the one hand, Scope Freezing is found in the former where the latter allows scope ambiguity. On the other hand, Broca’s aphasic patients successfully comprehend German/Dutch passive, but fail in English. (c) We reanalyze new data from Dutch and Italian passive, which point to new and potentially interesting cross-linguistic differences. Our current analyses are based on an addition of raw scores from 62 new patients to the existing data base of 69 Broca’s aphasic patients. We conclude that while aphasic performance is indeed variable, the group results have distinct statistical and linguistic structure.

Reading & Writing

Reading & Writing

A Syntactic Bias in Scope Ambiguity Resolution in the Processing of English‐French Cardinality Interrogatives: Evidence for Informational Encapsulation

This article presents a reading‐time study of scope resolution in the interpretation of ambiguous cardinality interrogatives in English‐French and in English and French native sentence processing. Participants were presented with a context, a self‐paced segment‐by‐segment presentation of a cardinality interrogative, and a numerical answer that respondents either accepted or rejected. Very narrowly distributed and interpretation‐dependent reading‐time asymmetries arose in English‐French processing and in French and English native processing. A syntactic account of scope resolution characterizes the reading‐time asymmetries produced by English‐French learners and differences between French and English native respondents. In contrast, a context‐driven theory of scope resolution encounters many severe problems that render its plausibility exceedingly remote.

Interpretation of Leftward-Moved Constituents: Processing Topicalizations in German

Five experiments were conducted on German topicalization sentences to explore their interpretation and the relation between the syntactic representation and the discourse representation of the sentence. It is proposed that a DP is rapidly instantiated as a discourse entity in the discourse representation whereas a NP is simply treated as a property. If the postulated discourse entity corresponding to the DP in SpecCP of a topicalized sentence must be retracted due to the occurrence of a later determiner (in split-topicalization) or due to the need to scope under a subsequent quantifier, the sentence should be di‰cult to process. These predictions were confirmed in two di‰culty judgment experiments and in an experiment where participants selected the first interpretation assigned to a scopally ambiguous sentence involving an adverbial quantifier. However, in a separate experiment, where scope ambiguities involving determiner quantifiers were tested, the preference for the discourse instantiated DP to take wide scope disappeared. Another di‰culty judgment experiment revealed substantial di‰culty for sentences containing ‘‘mixed chains’’ where a DP moves and then a NP moves out of the moved DP. This di‰culty was not observed in corresponding sentences containing essentially the same lexical content in the same positions but without the movement responsible for creating the mixed chain.

A typology of negation in a constraint-based framework of syntax and semantics

Negation and negative indefinites raise problems for the principle of compositionality of meaning, because we find both double and single negation readings in natural languages. De Swart and Sag (2002) solve the compositionality problem in a polyadic quantifier framework. The syntax-semantics interface exploits an extension of the Cooper storage mechanism that HPSG uses to account for scope ambiguities. In de Swart and Sag (2002), all negative quantifiers are collected into an N-store, and are interpreted by means of iteration (double negation) or resumption (negative concord) upon retrieval. This puts the ambiguity between single and double negation readings in the grammar, rather than in the lexical items. This paper extends the earlier analysis with a typology of negation and negative indefinites using bi-directional optimality theory (OT). The constraints defined are universal, but their ranking varies from one language to the next. In negative concord languages, the functional motivation for the marking of 'negative variables' wins out, so we use n-words. Double negation languages value first-order iteration, so we use plain indefinites or negative polarity items within the scope of negation. The bi-directional set-up is essential, for syntactic and semantic variation go hand in hand.

The One Fatal Flaw in Anselm's Argument

Anselm's Ontological Argument fails, but not for any of the various reasons commonly adduced. In particular, its failure has nothing to do with violating deep Kantian principles by treating ‘exists’ as a predicate or making reference to ‘Meinongian’ entities. Its one fatal flaw, so far from being metaphysically deep, is in fact logically shallow, deriving from a subtle scope ambiguity in Anselm's key phrase. If we avoid this ambiguity, and the indeterminacy of reference to which it gives rise, then his argument is blocked even if his supposed Meinongian extravagances are permitted. Moreover it is blocked in a way which is straightforward and compelling (by contrast with the Kantian objections), and which generalizes easily to other versions of the Ontological Argument. A significant moral follows. Fear of Anselm's argument has been hugely influential in motivating ontological fastidiousness and widespread reluctance to countenance talk of potentially non-existing entities. But if this paper is correct, then the Ontological Argument cannot properly provide any such motivation. Some of the most influential contributions to ontology, from Kant to Russell and beyond, rest on a mistake.

Computational Semantics in Discourse: Underspecification, Resolution, and Inference

In this paper I introduce a formalism for natural language understanding based on a computational implementation of Discourse Representation Theory. The formalism covers a wide variety of semantic phenomena (including scope and lexical ambiguities, anaphora and presupposition), is computationally attractive, and has a genuine inference component. It combines a well-established linguistic formalism (DRT) with advanced techniques to deal with ambiguity (underspecification), and is innovative in the use of first-order theorem proving techniques. The architecture of the formalism for natural language understanding that I advocate consists of three levels of processing: underspecification, resolution, and inference. Each of these levels has a distinct function and therefore employs a different kind of semantic representation. The mappings between these different representations define the interfaces between the levels. I show how underspecified semantic representations can be built in a compositional way (for a fragment of English Grammar) using standard techniques borrowed from the λ-calculus, how inferences can be carried out on discourse representations using a translation to first-order logic, and how existing research prototypes (discourse processing and spoken-dialogue systems) implement the formalism.

The syntax of correlative adverbs

The status of words like either, both and neither, here referred to as “correlative adverbs” or “correlatives”, is controversial. Using relevant data from Germanic languages, I shall show that the analyses of Schwarz (1999) and Larson (1985) are inadequate. Instead, I will suggest an analysis based on the assumptions in Hendriks (2001a,b, 2002): that correlatives are focus particles. Their syntactic position is discussed with the hypothesis that focus particles are adverbs, and I suggest, inspired by the adverb hierarchies of Cinque (1997), that there is a designated Correlative Phrase position. My analysis includes overt and covert movement, which explains some correlations between different interpretations of scope and syntactic positions, as discussed also by Larson (1985) and Bayer (1996). My analysis not only gives an account of this kind of scope ambiguity, but also accounts for the fact that each correlative is associated with only one conjunction; that with phrasal coordination, the correlative can be displaced from the conjunction phrase; and that with sentential coordination, the correlative can be part of the first conjunct.

The Role of Context in the Resolution of Quantifier Scope Ambiguities

This paper presents experimental results that elucidate some aspects of semantic processing, i.e. of the system that allows perceivers to associate an interpretation to a sentence on‐line. The phenomenon under investigation is the resolution of quantifier scope ambiguities. Sentences containing multiple quantifiers (i.e. everybody, some musician, etc.) are known to give rise to several interpretations. The question addressed in this work is how this kind of ambiguity is resolved in the on‐line process of constructing an interpretation for a sentence. The research reported here concentrates exclusively on English and French interrogative sentences, and in particular on the case of ambiguous how many questions that contain a universally quantified subject, every N. The central results of this paper are the following. First, quantifier scope preferences are shown to be problematic for the most straightforward extension of an economy‐based model to the processing of meaning, as evidenced by questionnaire studies in English and in French. Second, a model is elaborated in which the attested scope preferences are determined by the interaction with context. The results from a self‐paced reading study in English indicate that context plays a crucial role in the processing of scope ambiguity. Third, while incremental context interactive models have been claimed to induce immediate resolution of structural ambiguity (Crain & Steedman 1985; Altmann & Steedman 1988; and others), it is argued here that the interaction with context can also delay such ambiguity resolution, as evidenced by the results of the English self‐paced reading study. Finally, comparison of the two languages, English and French, sheds further light onto the phenomenon under investigation.

Token Dependency Semantics and the Paratactic Analysis of Intensional Constructions

This article introduces Token Dependency Semantics (TDS), a surface‐oriented and token‐based framework for compositional truth‐conditional semantics. It is motivated by Davidson's ‘paratactic’ analysis of semantic intensionality (‘On Saying That’, 1968, Synthèse19: 130–146), which has been much discussed in philosophy. This is the first fully‐fledged formal implementation of Davidson's proposal. Operator‐argument structure and scope are captured by means of relations among tokens. Intensional constituent tokens represent ‘propositional’ contents directly. They serve as arguments to the words introducing intensional contexts, rather than being ‘ordinary’ constituents. The treatment of de re readings involves the use of functions (‘anchors’) assigning entities to argument positions of lexical tokens. Quantifiers are thereby allowed to bind argument places on content tokens. This gives us a simple underspecification‐based account of scope ambiguity. The TDS framework is applied to indirect speech reports, mental attitude sentences, control verbs, and modal and agent‐relative sentence adverbs in English. This semantics is compatible with a traditional view of syntax. Here, it is integrated into a Head‐driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). The result is a straightforward and ontologically parsimonious analysis of truth‐conditional meaning and semantic intensionality.

Glue semantics for HPSG

‎The glue approach to semantic interpretation has been developed principally for Lexical Functional Grammar. Recent work has shown how glue can be used with a variety of syntactic theories and this paper outlines how it can be applied to HPSG. As well as providing an alternative form of semantics for HPSG, we believe that the benefits of HPSG glue include the following: (1) simplification of the Semantics Principle; (2) a simple and elegant treatment of modifier scope, including empirical phenomena like quantifier scope ambiguity, the interaction of scope with raising, and recursive modification; (3) an analysis of control that handles agreement between controlled subjects and their coarguments while allowing for a property denotation for the controlled clause; (4) re-use of highly efficient techniques for semantic derivation already implemented for LFG, and which target problems of ambiguity management also addressed by Minimal Recursion Semantics.

Continuations and the Nature of Quantification

This paper proposes that the meanings of some natural language expressions should be thought of as functions on their own continuations. Continuations are a well-established analytic tool in the theory of programming language semantics; in brief, a continuation is the entire default future of a computation. I show how a continuation-based grammar can unify several aspects of natural language quantification in a new way: merely stating the truth conditions for quantificational expressions in terms of continuations automatically accounts for scope displacement and scope ambiguity. To prove this claim, I exhibit a simple finite context-free grammar with a strictly compositional semantics in which quantificational NPs are interpreted in situ but take semantic scope over larger constituents. There is no Quantifier Raising (nor any use of a level of Logical Form distinct from overt syntax), no Cooper Storage (or similar mechanisms used in many recent HPSG, Categorial, or Type-logical treatments), and no need for type-shifting (as in Hendriks' Flexible Types account). Continuations also provide a natural account of generalized coordination that does not require either type-shifting or type polymorphism. Compositionality issues are discussed in some detail.

Introducing Continuations

This working paper introduces CONTINUATIONS (a concept borrowed from computer science) as a new technique for characterizing certain aspects of the semantics of a natural language. I should emphasize at the outset that this is just an introduction, and that more a rigorous and thorough treatment is under development (see Barker (ms)). In the meantime, this paper mentions certain formal results without proving them, and describes certain new empirical generalizations without exploring them. What it will do is provide an explicit account of a range of familiar phenomena relat­ed to quantification, including quantifier scope ambiguity, NP as a scope island, and generalized coordination. What makes the account noteworthy is that it provides a fully and strictly compositional analysis of quantification and generalized coordina­tion that does not rely on syntactic movement operations such as Quantifier Move­ment, auxiliary storage mechanisms such as Cooper Storage, or type ambiguity as in Hendriks' Flexible Types system.

Deutsche Syntax deklarativ: Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar für das Deutsche. By Stefan Müller. (Linguistische Arbeiten, 394.) Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999. Pp. xiii, 486. Paper. DM 186.00.

Stefan Müller has written an extensive study of a large range of German constructions from the perspective of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG). For a theoretical work, it is notable for its scale, for its extensive use of current material from corpora, and for its welcome attention to the descriptive literature. Furthermore, the analyses can be tested on Müller's prolog implementation of HPSG, which runs at http://www.dfki.de/~stefan/. This is a very extensive fragment of German, involving thousands of words of different classes, raising and control verbs, passives, verb particle constructions, the “third“ construction, modal flip (Oberfeldumstellung), several sorts of relative clauses, extraposition, complex fronting, semifree word order in the Mittelfeld, scope ambiguities, and more. It is unusual to find this all in a single implementation, and the work is unique in being made available on the web. Müller's web page also contains errata for this book and examples.

Plausible Reasoning and the Resolution of Quantifier Scope Ambiguities

Despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that quantifier scope is a phenomenon that must be treated at the pragmatic level, most computational treatments of scope ambiguities have thus far been a collection of syntactically motivated preference rules. This might be in part due to the prevailing wisdom that a commonsense inferencing strategy would require the storage of and reasoning with a vast amount of background knowledge. In this paper we hope to demonstrate that the challenge in developing a commonsense inferencing strategy is in the discovery of the relevant commonsense data and in a proper formulation of the inferencing strategy itself, and that a massive amount of background knowledge is not always required. In particular, we present a very effective procedure for resolving quantifier scope ambiguities at the pragmatic level using simple ‘quantitative’ data that is readily available in most database environments.

Crypto-ambiguity

The two most familiar sources of ambiguity in an ambiguous sentence or phrase are ambiguous lexical items like bank, or alternative syntactic construals involving hierarchical structure (as in He saw the man with the telescope) or construction (as in The chimp is cooking). However, there are also examples of phrasal ambiguity, called here “crypto-ambiguity”, which involve neither lexical nor syntactic ambiguity. The ambiguity in these cases is essentially an ambiguity of scope. What they have in common is that a semantic process targets not the whole of the meaning of a lexical item, but alternative sub-portions. These sub-portions may be facets, micro-senses, qualia roles, active zones or classical semantic features.