Quantificational topics: A scopal treatment of exceptional wide scope phenomena

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Volume 86 Managing Editors KAI VON FINTEL, M.I.T., Camb...

Author: Cornelia Endriss

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QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS

Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Volume 86

Managing Editors KAI VON FINTEL, M.I.T., Cambridge LISA MATTHEWSON, University of British Columbia Editorial Board JOHAN VAN BENTHEM, University of Amsterdam GREGORY N. CARLSON, University of Rochester DAVID DOWTY, Ohio State University, Columbus GERALD GAZDAR, University of Sussex, Brighton IRENE HEIM, M.I.T., Cambridge EWAN KLEIN, University of Edinburgh BILL LADUSAW, University of California at Santa Cruz TERRENCE PARSONS, University of California, Irvine

For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/6556

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS A Scopal Treatment of Exceptional Wide Scope Phenomena

CORNELIA ENDRISS University of Osnabrück, Germany

ABC

Cornelia Endriss Albrechtstrasse 28 49076 Osnabrück University of Osnabrück Germany [email protected]

ISBN 978-90-481-2302-5

e-ISBN 978-90-481-2303-2

DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 Library of Congress Control Number: Applied for c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com

Für Volker

Contents 1

2

3

Introduction 1.1 Information Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Truth-Conditional Effects of Information Structure 1.3 Topical Quantifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Topicality and Exceptional Wide Scope . . . . . . 1.5 An Outline of the Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 The Structure of this Book . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Topicality 2.1 Defining Topicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Aboutness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Familiarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Topics as Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.4 Indefinite Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.5 Reinhart (1981) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Topic Tests and Topical Quantifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Simple Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Syntactic Marking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Intonational Marking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 Morphological Marking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5 A Discourse Configurational Language: Hungarian 2.2.6 Alleged Topic Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Genuine and Apparent Scope Readings 3.1 Specificity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Ioup (1977) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Hintikka (1986) . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3 Enç (1991) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.4 Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Wide Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Apparent Wide Scope . . . . . . 3.2.2 Apparent vs. Genuine Wide Scope

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vii

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CONTENTS 3.3

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Exceptional Wide Scope 4.1 Scope Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Class of Wide Scope Quantifiers . . . . . . 4.3 Genuine vs. Apparent Exceptional Wide Scope 4.4 Approaches Relying on Speaker’s Reference . . 4.4.1 Fodor and Sag (1982) . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 Other Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Approaches Relying on Domain Restriction . . 4.5.1 Schwarzschild (2002) . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 Other Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.3 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Presuppositional Approaches . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.1 Yeom (1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.2 Cresti (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.3 Other Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.4 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Choice Function Approaches . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.1 Reinhart (1997); Winter (1997) . . . . 4.7.2 Kratzer (1998) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.3 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.4 Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Approaches Relying on Wide Extraction . . . . 4.9 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.10 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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107 107 112 115 118 118 123 123 133 134 136 136 138 138 144 150 151 152 152 156 165 174 182 182 184

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187 187 191 197 197

3.4 4

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Functional Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Natural Functions . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3 Properties of Natural Functions . . . 3.3.4 Apparent vs. Genuine Narrow Scope . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Semantic Effects of Topicality 5.1 Types of Aboutness Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Intonation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Topicality Induces Wide Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Genuine Wide Scope vs. Apparent Wide Scope . . . 5.3.2 Apparent Non-Wide Scope Interpretations of Direct Aboutness Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Does a Strong Interpretation Imply Topicality? . . . . . . . 5.5 Approaches Relating Exceptional Wide Scope to Topicality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Exceptional Wide Scope as a Topic Phenomenon 213 6.1 Deriving the Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

CONTENTS 6.2

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6.4 6.5

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Technical Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Quantifier Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Structured Meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . Components of the Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Creating a Topic Discourse Referent . . . . . 6.3.2 The Topic Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.3 Quantifier Classification . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.4 Topic Assert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deriving Wide Scope via Topicality . . . . . . . . . Intermediate Scope Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5.3 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Functional Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6.1 The Interpretation of Functional DPs . . . . 6.6.2 Topic Interpretation and the Topic Condition with Functional DPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Conclusion

A Technicalities and Experiments A.1 Generalized Quantifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.1.1 Monotonicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.1.2 Witness Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.1.3 Lexical Quantifier Semantics . . . . . . . . . A.2 Pilot Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.2.1 The Accent Pattern of Wide Scope Indefinites A.2.2 Wide Scope vs. ‘Anti-Distributivity’ . . . . .

222 222 233 235 236 238 239 245 246 249 249 254 258 260 263

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281 281 281 281 281 283 283 285

Bibliography

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Index

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Acknowledgements This book grew out of my PhD thesis at the University of Potsdam and, naturally, I owe a lot to many people who have helped me since the first day I thought about quantification and topicality. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the members of my thesis committee: Peter Staudacher, who got me interested in linguistics in the first place and who taught me virtually everything about academic research I know by now; Manfred Krifka, who was always a source for new ideas, exotic data and pointers to other approaches; and Ede Zimmermann, whose suggestions and comments were always extremely helpful for the solution of persistent problems. I owe a lot to Christian Ebert, Hans-Martin Gärtner (who introduced me to exceptional wide scope phenomena during a seminar), Andreas Haida, Stefan Hinterwimmer, and Gerhard Jäger. They have helped me with detailed discussions on various aspects of the approach. The fruits of these collaborations resulted in co-authored publications that relate to the issues of this book. Furthermore, I would like to thank Sigrid Beck, Suna Bensch-Aydin, Peter Bosch, Daniel Büring, Philippa Cook, Regine Eckardt, Alex Grosu, Beáta Gyuris, Irene Heim, Klaus von Heusinger, Robin Hörnig, Shinichiro Ishihara, Bryan Jurish, Elsi Kaiser, Dalina Kallulli, Hans Kamp, Katalin Kiss, Frank Kügler, Knud Lambrecht, Edmund Pohl, Robert van Rooij, Roger Schwarzschild, Yael Sharvit, Arnim von Stechow, Craig Thiersch, Carla Umbach, Thomas Weskott, and Malte Zimmermann for helpful comments, inspiring discussions and support. Many thanks go also to my non-linguistic collaborators Verena Diehl, Inge Endriss, Erin Gordon, Barbara Herold, Clarissa Köhnken, Wolf Lindstrot, Katja Uhlisch, and Silke Quast for their patience while enduring questions about native speaker judgments. I thankfully acknowledge the support of the collaborative research center SFB 632 Information Structure, funded by the German Science Foundation DFG, and its speaker, Caroline Féry, in particular. I would also like to thank the people at Springer, in particular Helen van der Stelt and Jolanda Voogd, and the editors of the Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Series, Kai von Fintel and Lisa Matthewson, for their willingness to publish this work, many helpful comments and suggestions and their overall support while preparing the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank my family – my parents, Volker, Axel, Dorothee, Finja, and Christian – for their constant support and help.

xi

Chapter 1

Introduction This book is dedicated to two major issues: topicality and exceptional wide scope, which are not as unrelated as one might assume. In this introduction, I will acquaint the reader with the notions that will be needed for the discussions in subsequent chapters and briefly lay out the proposal I wish to make with this work. I will start with a short introduction to information structure, which is necessary to get a picture of the different notions of topicality, and then set the stage for a new approach to exceptional wide scope phenomena.

1.1 Information Structure Information structure is originally understood as the linguistic field that is concerned with the question of how a piece of information is presented by a speaker most efficiently so that it can be best understood by a listener. At first, this seems to be the counterpart to truth-conditional semantics, which deals with the question of what kind of information can truthfully be conveyed. Given the situation in which a speaker wants to convey the information in (1.1), (1.1) Some time in the past, a person called Dena bought a horse. truth-conditional semantics only cares about the fact that exactly this information is conveyed. This could be done by an utterance of the following sentence: (1.2) Dena bought a horse. There are certainly many other ways to convey the information in (1.1) apart from (1.2), but even if we commit ourselves to the structure in (1.2), there are several ways C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 1,

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to present it. The most natural way would be to focus the whole VP bought a horse and hence to stress horse (by the rules of focus projection1 ). (1.3) Dena [bought a HORSE]F . Sentence (1.3) naturally splits into two parts. As has been pointed out by Molnár (1993), we can look at these two parts in several ways. Her view is based on the Organonmodell of Bühler (1934) and she proposes to distinguish three different aspects of the information structure of an utterance2 : 1. the factual level, which distinguishes what is said (the comment) from what this comment is about (the topic of the utterance); 2. the hearer-related level, which differentiates between things that are new to the hearer (the rheme) and things that are already known (the theme); 3. the speaker-related level, where the utterance is divided into what is important or relevant from the speaker’s viewpoint, i.e. the focus, and what is not as important and thus constitutes the background. All three levels can coincide, overlap, or be disjoint. In the case of (1.3), they all coincide.3 Let us look at the theme-rheme distinction first. It is plausible to assume that the hearer already knows Dena as a person, but that he learns from the sentence that she has bought a horse. Hence Dena constitutes the theme and the rest of the sentence the rheme. The focus or most relevant information that is to be conveyed by the speaker, corresponds to the predicate, i.e. to bought a horse, whereas Dena builds the background. As can be seen, in this case, background coincides with theme and focus with rheme. Thirdly, we can look at the information to be conveyed by (1.3) in the following way: we distinguish between the entity under discussion, the part the sentence is about, and its counterpart, i.e. the information that is given about the topic, the predicative part. In (1.3), Dena would clearly be the topic, whereas bought a horse would be the comment. Hence, topic, background, and theme as well as comment, focus, and rheme coincide. But as mentioned above, this is not always the case. In fact, these information structuring units lie orthogonal to each other. For example, the domains can overlap as in example (1.4) from (Dahl, 1974, p. 2, ex. 3)4 or embed each other, i.e. focal constituents can be embedded in topics as in (1.5) or topics can be embedded in focal constituents (see von Fintel, 1994) as shown in (1.6).5 1 See

for instance Selkirk (1995) for the relationship between focus accents and possible focus domains. I use capital letters to indicate the main accent and brackets with subscript F ([. . . ]F ) to mark the focus domain. 2 I would like to thank Rainer Ludwig, who called my attention to Moln´ ar’s work (cf. also Ludwig, 2006). 3 As focus and rheme coincide most of the time, I will, following linguistic tradition, often refer to the part of the sentence with new information as its focus, although, strictly speaking, I should refer to it as its rhematic part. 4 In his examples, Dahl (1974) only distinguishes between topic-comment on the one side and focusbackground on the other. 5 See (Moln´ ar, 1993, pp. 166–67) for further related examples.

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION (1.4)

3

a. What about John? What does he drink? b. John drinks beer. c. [John]T [drinks beer]C [John drinks]Th [beer]Rh [John drinks]B [beer]F

The two questions in (1.4a) render John the topic and beer the focus and rheme of the sentence in (1.4b). drink is neither topic nor focus/rheme, which means that topic and focus/rheme are not complementary. This is indicated in (1.4c), where T(opic) overlaps with B(ackground) and F(ocus) with C(omment). As has been argued by several authors (see e.g. von Fintel, 1994; Krifka, 1998), partial or contrastive topics can be understood as topics with an embedded focal constituent. (1.5)

a. Yesterday, I saw many horses. b. [[↑THREE ]F (of the) horses]T were very cute.

The sentence in (1.5b) contains the partial topic three (of the) horses. A certain set of horses has been introduced by (1.5a) and (1.5b) makes a statement about a part of this set. The determiner three of the DP needs to be accented in this context. It carries a strong accent, which is usually assumed to be a rising one, indicated by an arrow ↑.6 The sentence is clearly about (a subset of) the horses introduced in (1.5a), so the subject three horses can be argued to be the topic. But three clearly represents central and new information and it contrasts with all other possible functions from the set of horses to possible subsets, which can be explained if three is interpreted as rhematic and focal.7 According to von Fintel (1994), one can also find examples of topics in focus (for further examples see also Lambrecht, 1994, p. 130). His example (see von Fintel, 1994, p. 56 originally Selkirk, 1995, p. 554 (based on Selkirk,1984)) is given in (1.6). (1.6)

a. We sat around the campfire last night, telling all sorts of stories about bats. Then, today guess what happened? b. [MARy bought a BOOK about [bats]T ]F .

Though the whole sentence is in focus, which means that under ‘normal’ circumstances, the main accent would be on bats, bats can be deaccented. Von Fintel argues that this is so because the bats or the stories about them are topical.8 6 In the course of this book we will see that it is not entirely clear whether this accent really has to be a rising one. However, it is usually assumed to be realized this way. 7 (von Fintel, 1994) does not argue for the topical status of DPs such as three horses in (1.5) by reference to their aboutness status, but rather by reference to a notion of discourse topicality. Yet, I take it that the basic line of argument remains the same. 8 This deaccenting effect is different from deaccenting in second occurrence focus constructions, which von Fintel (1994) also discusses. In example (1.7) from (Rooth, 1992, p. 109), only associates with rice rather than with eat, resulting in a meaning: the only thing that people eat who grow rice is rice.

(1.7) People who GROW rice generally only EAT rice. According to the interpretation of (1.7), the accent should be on rice. Obviously, the reason for the fact that eat receives the main accent is that it is contrasted with grow. People have argued that in these cases rice also receives an accent – but a much less strong one than grow – and that rice is still focal and therefore can associate with only (see Partee, 1991; Rooth, 1992). This so-called second occurrence effect is confirmed

4


Going back to example (1.2), if one sets aside the exact characterization of the information-structural units of (1.2), it is certainly true that, out of context, (1.3) is the best way to pronounce (1.2). But things are different if (1.3) (repeated as (1.10b) below) is uttered as an answer to (1.10a). (1.10)

a. Who bought a horse? b. # Dena [bought a HORSE]F . c. [DEna]F bought a horse.

(1.10b) is not well suited as an answer to the question in (1.10a).9 The best way to answer this question and convey the information in (1.1) would be by uttering (1.10c). The question in (1.11a), on the other hand, would allow for (1.10b) as an answer, but not for (1.10c) (repeated below as (1.11b) and (1.11c), respectively). (1.11)

a. What did Dena do? b. Dena [bought a HORSE]F . c. # [DEna]F bought a horse.

What this shows is that information structure defines the appropriateness of an utterance. Although (1.11b) and (1.10c) are truth-conditionally equivalent, they are, nevertheless, appropriate only in specific contexts.

by an observation that von Fintel ascribes to Susanne Tunstall, namely that the sentence sounds odd when rice is replaced by a pronoun. (1.8)

?? People

who GROW rice generally only EAT it.

Von Fintel claims that the reason for the oddity of (1.8) might be the fact that the anaphoric pronoun it cannot carry a focus accent, which would be necessary for the VP to count as associate of only. Now, this is different in example (1.6). Here, we can replace bats by a pronoun without causing ungrammaticality. (1.9)

a. We sat around the campfire last night, telling all sorts of stories about bats. Then, today guess what happened? b. [MARy bought a BOOK about [them]T ]F .

This suggests that there is a difference between the two types of deaccenting, which would mean in turn that topical deaccenting really is different in nature. As a side remark, it seems that the focus theory of Schwarzschild (1999), which is entirely based on the notion of givenness, would predict the correct pitch accents in (1.6) as well as in (1.7). Still, it is not clear to me how one could derive the correct meaning for (1.7) (as no F-marking for the NP rice would be predicted, which eventually has to associate with only ). But more to the point, there would clearly be no difference between the ‘deaccentuation’ of bats in (1.6) and rice in (1.7) as both constituents are simply not predicted to receive an F-marking in the first place. What this shows is that it remains necessary to differentiate between topical deaccenting on the one hand and non-topical/purely givenness triggered deaccenting on the other. 9 I mark pragmatic oddity, e.g. due to contextual inadequacy, with the hashmark (#). Ungrammaticality is marked with the star (∗), and graded (un)acceptability (with respect to grammaticality as well as contextual adequacy) by question marks (?? – essentially unacceptable, but marginally possible; ? – possible, but not fully natural).

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

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1.2 Truth-Conditional Effects of Information Structure It is well known – especially due to the work of Rooth (1985) – that information structure and semantics are not as separate from each other as it might seem at first sight. In fact, information structure has been shown to heavily influence the truth conditions of a sentence. The best known examples of information structure-sensitive interpretations are sentences with focus-sensitive particles such as only or sentences with quantificational adverbials (Q-adverbs in the following) such as always, which usually also involve indefinites. I use the term ‘indefinite’ for DPs that denote weak quantifiers in the sense of e.g. (Milsark, 1977) or (Barwise and Cooper, 1981). As opposed to some authors (e.g. Heim, 1982; Kamp and Reyle, 1993), I assume that indefinites have quantificational force and do not just denote free variables, sets, plural individuals, or other semantic objects. In other words, I use the term indefinite as equivalent to weak quantifier. Note that neither the extensional characterization of the class of indefinites nor the intensional characterization of how this class can best be defined is undisputed (for an overview of the different notions see de Swart, 1999). Example (1.12) from Rooth (1992) shows that focus is decisive for the interpretation of the sentence.10 (1.12)

a. In English orthography, a ‘U’ always follows a ‘Q’. (true) b. In English orthography, a ‘U’ always follows a ‘Q’. (false)

Given our knowledge about English orthography, only (1.12a) is correct, which says that whenever there is a ‘Q’, it is followed by a ‘U’. (1.12b), on the other hand, states that ‘U’s only appear after ‘Q’s in English, which is certainly not correct. These readings are usually referred to as quantificational variability readings (Berman, 1991), as the quantificational force of the indefinite a ‘U’ /a ‘Q’ depends on the quantificational adverb (and varies with it). Under the assumption that quantificational adverbials exclusively quantify over eventualities/situations s and not over individuals (see e.g.von Fintel, 1994; Hinterwimmer, 2008; Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2008 and for a different view Lewis, 1975; Heim, 1982; Kratzer, 1995), the sentences in (1.12a,b) receive the interpretations in (1.13a,b), respectively.11 (1.13)

a. ∀s[in(s, Q) → follow (s, U, Q)] b. ∀s[in(s, U ) → follow (s, U, Q)]

Representation (1.13a) can be understood to say that all (relevant) situations which contain a ‘Q’ are situations in which this ‘Q’ is followed by a ‘U’; and representation (1.13b) can be understood to say: all situations containing a ‘U’ are situations where this ‘U’ follows a ‘Q’. The different readings of (1.12a,b) can only exist due to the 10 The accented word is set in boldface and underlined here as it consists of one capital letter only, that, obviously, cannot be marked as accented as above. 11 The representations in (1.13) are problematic in many ways. Without further assumptions, especially without assuming minimal situations, they would not reflect the intuitive truth conditions of (1.12) because of the so called requantification problem (see von Fintel, 1994), which leads to an instance of the proportion problem (see Kadmon, 1987). Unfortunately, a discussion of these matters would lead us too far afield.

6


different accent placement in the two sentences, i.e. due to information-structural differences. It has been argued that the different interpretations come about because focal material is exclusively interpreted in the second argument – i.e. in the nuclear scope – of quantificational adverbials, whereas the remaining information of the sentence (i.e. the denotation of the whole sentence minus the adverbial itself and minus the focal part) is mapped onto the first argument, i.e. the restrictor (see e.g. Rooth, 1985; Herburger, 2000 for concrete proposals for the formulation of such mapping algorithms). Alternatively, it has been suggested that it is not focus, but topicality, the other important information-structural entity, that plays the decisive role (see e.g. Chierchia, 1995). Under this view, it is assumed that topical material is interpreted in the restrictor. Partee (1991) argues that focus as well as topicality has to be considered: topical material is interpreted in the restrictor, whereas focal material is mapped onto the nuclear scope. In contrast to Q-adverbs, the arguments of quantificational determiners such as every are not determined by information structure.12 They are determined by syntax instead: the syntactic complement forms the restrictor and the rest of the sentence constitutes the nucleus. In the following, I will often refer to the denotation of a DP that consists of a quantificational determiner and an NP – e.g. every man – as a generalized quantifier or just a quantifier. (1.14)

a. In English, every ‘Q’ is followed by a ‘U’. (true) b. In English, every ‘Q’ is followed by a ‘U’. (true)

Though out of context (1.14a) is clearly more natural than (1.14b) both sentences convey true information. The two versions differ only in their appropriateness conditions and not in (truth-conditional) meaning. Both receive the same interpretation given in (1.15). All relevant x (i.e. all letters) that are ‘Q’s are followed by a ‘U’, which means nothing other than: all ‘Q’s are followed by a ‘U’. (1.15) ∀x[is(x, Q) → ∃y[is(y, U ) ∧ follow (y, x)]

1.3 Topical Quantifiers As we have seen, syntax dictates the arguments for quantificational determiners and information structure does not influence this process directly. Yet, information structure still has some semantic effect in the context of sentences with determiner quantifiers, too: topical indefinites have been argued to receive a partitive or a specific/referential/wide scope interpretation (see among others Cresti, 1995; Jäger, 1996; de Swart, 2001; Portner and Yabushita, 2001).13 Consider the following contrast in German, where – as opposed to the indefinite in (1.16a) – the indefinite in (1.16b) 12 There are however exceptions to this general scheme, namely certain quantificational determiners that seem to be sensitive to information structure, i.e. many and few (cf. Herburger, 2000 but see Cohen, 2000 for a conservative explanation of the different readings of many and few based on an inherent vagueness of these quantificational determiners and not on an information-structural dependence). I will ignore this complication. 13 I will elaborate on the terms specificity, referentiality, and wide scope in Section 3.1. Up to this point, the reader is asked to understand specific, referential, and wide scope indefinite as expressing the same thing in a pre-theoretical manner.


7

is assumed to be topical,14 indicated by its particular intonation pattern (namely by a strong accent on the determiner). a. Jedes Pferd hat ein HINdernis passiert.

(1.16)

every horse has a

obstacle

passed

‘Every horse has jumped (over) some obstacle.’ ∀x[horse(x) → ∃y[obstacle(y) ∧ jump over (x, y)]] b. Jedes Pferd hat ↑EIN Hindernis passiert. every horse has one obstacle

passed

‘Every horse has jumped (over) some obstacle.’ ∃y[obstacle(y) ∧ ∀x[horse(x) → jump over (x, y)]] In (1.16a), the indefinite ein HINdernis (one obstacle) receives a focal accent. (1.16b) realizes what is usually considered to be a topical accent on the (determiner of the) indefinite. Native speakers’ judgments vary with respect to the question of whether (1.16a) has only a narrow scope reading for the indefinite or whether it is ambiguous between a narrow and a wide scope reading. However, uncontroversially, (1.16b) does not allow for a simple narrow scope reading. It supports only a wide scope reading for the indefinite ↑EIN Hindernis (some obstacle) or a contrastive (narrow scope) reading, where ein is read as one and contrasted to two or three. In the contrastive reading, the sentence would have to be followed by something like (1.17) Aber alle fünf haben nur wenige Pferde geschafft. but

all five have

only few

horses managed

‘But only few horses managed all five.’ That (1.16b), if interpreted non-contrastively, forces a wide scope reading of the indefinite calls for an explanation.15 A solution that connects the wide scope reading of the indefinite with its topical status suggests itself. It has often been noted that only certain types of quantifiers can function as topics, among them singular indefinites such as some man and bare numeral indefinites such as three men.16 To illustrate this, in the following example German left dislocation serves as a topic-testing device, which, according to (Frey, 2000; Jacobs, 2001; Frey, 2004b), marks the left-dislocated element unambiguously as topical. Note that leftdislocated indefinites in German often have to carry a strong accent on the determiner (although an accent on the NP-complement would be the usual ‘neutral’ accent pattern for a DP in German) to make the sentences sound felicitous, which is indicated by capital letters in (1.18) and (1.19). The reason for this unusual accent pattern will become clear in subsequent chapters. When the quantifiers are marked as infelicitous in left-dislocated position and no specific accent is indicated, this is to be understood to mean that the quantifiers are infelicitous in this position under any intonation. (RP stands for resumptive pronoun in the following.) 14 Possibly,

it is a partial topic as in the case of (1.5). will come back to the contrastive reading of examples such as (1.16b) in the course of this book. Let us set this reading aside for the moment. 16 Many authors do not consider these indefinites which can be topical to be quantifiers as I do, however. 15 I

8

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS (1.18)

a. EInen Politiker, den kennt jeder. some politician RP knows everybody

‘One politician everybody knows.’ ¨ das wollte einst nach Frankreich reisen. b. Ein kleines MADchen, a

little

girl

RP wanted once to

France

travel

‘Once, a little girl wanted to travel to France.’ c. ∗ Fast alle Politiker, die kennt keiner. almost all politicians RP knows nobody ∗

Mehr als fünf kleine Mädchen, die wollten einst nach Frankreich more than five little

girls

RP wanted once to

France

reisen. travel

To see the general picture, consider the following example. (1.19)

a. ∗ Kein / EIN Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. no

/ some horse RP has the bananas eaten

‘No horse / Some horse has eaten the bananas.’ b. ∗ (Nur) Wenige / ?? Mehr als drei / ∗ Fast alle / DREI Pferde, die (only) few

/

more than three / almost all / three horses RP

haben die Bananen gefressen. have

the bananas eaten

‘Few / more than three / almost all / three horses have eaten the bananas.’ (1.19) shows that only elements of a small subclass of quantifiers (and of the weak quantifiers) are permissible in topical position, among them singular indefinites and bare numeral indefinites in particular. This peculiar fact calls for a semantic explanation. Why is it that only some quantifiers can function as topics, whereas others cannot? We will see that this fact follows directly from the lexical semantics of the quantifiers involved (provided a certain view and formal representation of topicality).

1.4 Topicality and Exceptional Wide Scope Interestingly, the class of topicable quantifiers, i.e. the class of quantifiers that are observed in topic positions or can be marked as topics otherwise, coincides with the class of quantifiers that can scope out of scope islands, i.e. constructions that usually do not allow quantifiers to take scope out of them. I will give a reason for this correlation and formulate an approach that treats exceptional wide scope readings of certain quantifiers as a by-product of their interpretation as sentence topics (for a similar idea see Cresti, 1995). Syntactic islands, i.e. those constructions that prohibit (overt) extraction from them (cf. Ross, 1967), are always also scope islands.17 As if -clauses are known to be such syntactic islands, they are also scope islands. 17 The reverse does not necessarily hold, however. E.g. finite clause complements of verbs such as believe do not constitute syntactic islands, but are usually considered to be scope islands (cf. Farkas, 1981).

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION (1.20) Peter will be happy if few movies are shown.

9 [if > few ] ∗ [few > if ]

(1.20) illustrates that an if -clause constitutes a scope island. The sentence only receives a narrow scope reading for the quantifier: Peter will be happy if overall few movies (under discussion) are shown. It is impossible to interpret the sentence as saying that for certain few movies, it holds that Peter will be happy if these movies are shown. This would be the wide scope reading. However, it is known that indefinites such as some N are not bound to this island constraint. In fact, they can take scope out of a scope island. I will refer to this ability as the exceptional wide scope behavior of indefinites. Details aside, the class of quantifiers that show this exceptional behavior – wide scope quantifiers in the following – coincides with the class of topicable quantifiers: bare singular indefinites and bare numeral quantifiers are among the wide scope quantifiers, whereas most other quantifiers respect scope islands. (1.21)

a. Peter will be happy if no movies are shown.

[if > ¬∃] ∗ [¬∃ > if ]

b. Peter will be happy if almost all movies are shown. [if > alm∀] ∗ [alm∀ > if ] c. Peter will be happy if few movies are shown. [if > few ] ∗ [few > if ] d. Peter will be happy if more than three movies are shown. [if > > 3] ?? [> 3 > if ] e. Peter will be happy if a/some movie is shown.

[if > ∃] [∃ > if ]

f. Peter will be happy if three movies are shown.

[if > 3] [3 > if ]

(1.21e,f) allow for a wide scope reading of the involved quantifiers; all other sentences do not. (1.21f), for example, can mean that there are three particular movies, say: Fried Green Tomatoes, Memento, and Fight Club, such that if these movies are shown, Peter will be happy. Such a wide scope reading is impossible in the case of e.g. (1.21d), which cannot mean that for more than three movies, say for a certain five movies, it holds that if they are shown, Peter will be happy. (1.21d) can only mean that overall more than three movies have to be shown in order to make Peter happy. This is the narrow scope reading. It will become clear in the subsequent chapters why there is a close correspondence between topicable quantifiers and those that allow for exceptional wide scope. As a side remark, I will not address the question of local scope – which quantifiers can take local scope over others and which cannot and why. I will focus on exceptional wide scope only.18 I will also only briefly discuss quantificational variability readings and focus on the readings of indefinites in interaction with other determiner quantifiers instead. I propose, in line with Cresti (1995) and Portner and Yabushita (1998), to correlate topicality and wide scope. In my approach, the same reason that explains why not all quantifiers can serve as topics also explains why these quantifiers cannot take exceptional wide scope. The ability to be a topic and to receive a wide scope interpretation is reduced to the application of one and the same operation to the respective 18 For

an in-depth discussion of local scope phenomena see the contributions in (Szabolcsi, 1997a).

10


constituent. Quantifiers receive wide scope due to their interpretation as topics. This in turn means that the topic-relation is not a pure pragmatic, non-semantic relation as explicitly claimed by Reinhart (1981, p. 3),19 but that it has a direct influence on the truth conditions of an utterance. It will be shown that exceptional wide scope has to be analyzed as a genuine scope phenomenon, i.e. that a topical indefinite has to literally take wide scope. It will also be shown that other attempts to imitate wide scope behavior eventually fail, because they cannot account for the full range of data (cf. also Schwarz, 2001a,b, 2004) or overgenerate badly. Among those are approaches that leave the indefinite in situ and introduce some existential closure mechanism (be it existential closure of an individual, a choice function or a Skolem function) (e.g. Reinhart, 1997; Winter, 1997; Kratzer, 1998), ones that interpret the respective indefinite as referential (e.g. Fodor and Sag, 1982), or that assume some kind of extreme domain restriction for the restriction of the indefinite (Schwarzschild, 2002). The only existing approaches to exceptional wide scope that are equipped to capture the truth conditions of all different sorts of readings correctly are those that treat specific indefinites as presuppositional (e.g. Yeom, 1998). However, these approaches suffer from conceptual problems, that will be discussed below. My proposal will also make a contribution to the conceptual question of whether exceptional wide scope phenomena in general are a matter of pragmatics or of semantics. This question underlies all approaches that attempt to explain specificity and exceptional wide scope. It has most explicitly been raised in (Bende-Farkas and Kamp, 2001). In their paper (and in many other works), exceptional wide scope readings are treated on a par with de re-readings of indefinites, also referred to as specific readings by many authors. An indefinite receives a wide scope interpretation when the respective indefinite is used (and understood) specifically, i.e. as the object the speaker has in mind and wants to talk about. As syntax should not influence the question of whether a speaker wants to talk about a specific object he has in mind or just make an existential utterance, according to this view, it is expected that indefinites embedded in syntactic islands behave exactly like ones that are not embedded in such islands. Bende-Farkas and Kamp (2001) raise the question of whether such specific readings, which involve notions about the speaker’s thoughts and intentions, should actually be reflected in semantic representations or whether those readings just come about by pragmatic inferences that go beyond semantics. In the second case, the narrow and the specific readings would have the same semantic representation (involving an existential statement) and the specific reading would simply come about because the hearer assumes that the speaker must be in the position to utter what he said on grounds of some specific knowledge that he has, namely that a particular object fulfills the existential statement he just made. The authors argue for the first view (i.e. for seeing specificity as a semantic matter), although they acknowledge that there are arguments for both sides. Occam’s razor makes the pragmatic solution more likely, because such pragmatic reasoning has to be assumed elsewhere anyway, but e.g. the existence of 19 But

note that Reinhart (1981, p. 14, Section 4) relativizes this claim later on in her article.


11

overt specificity markers in numerous languages (e.g. bestimmt in German20 ) shows that specificity seems to be a phenomenon of the syntax-semantics interface. The authors argue that more – especially crosslinguistic – work is needed and close their chapter on specificity (Chapter 3, p. 87) with the following words: [...] we expect from such research further insights into the ways in which human languages draw the line between what is incorporated into their “grammar” [...] and what is left to extralinguistic inferences on the part of the interpreter. This last motivation brings us to what we see as the other major issue on which the study of specific indefinites forces us. This is the distinction which it seems to us must be acknowledged between semantic content as it emerges from application of the syntax-semantics interface principles to the syntactic structure of an uttered sentence and the (more or less conventionalised) further inferences which the recipient is likely to draw (and which he may, as a competent speaker of the language, be expected to draw). The way we formulated this question makes it into a clear case of the demarcation between semantics and pragmatics, as that issue is usually understood. And it is possible that some semanticist will feel that this is therefore an issue with which they will have no commerce. But the matter is a matter of language interpretation, so no overarching theory of interpretation in verbal communication can afford to ignore it. And if it is to be addressed properly, then, we contend, we will need the quite rich modes of description and representation which we haven’t hesitated to use [...]. This quotation of Bende-Farkas and Kamp (2001) makes it very clear that the authors understand specificity to be a very complex matter, namely one that involves speakers’ intentions and a hearer’s interpretation of them. Nevertheless they say that it is a matter of language interpretation and therefore cannot simply be excluded from semantics. I will only indirectly address their question about where to locate specificity, but nevertheless contribute to the question under discussion. I will argue that certain phenomena, which so far have often been discussed under the label specificity, should be kept out of this discussion. These are those phenomena that can (and, as we will see, must) be analyzed as genuine scope phenomena (including exceptional wide scope). Such readings can and should be represented without recourse to the speaker’s reference (for this view see also Ludlow and Neale, 1991). In other words, I will not address the question raised by Bende-Farkas and Kamp (2001) about where to locate specificity directly, but I will narrow down the range of such specific readings and show that a certain group of phenomena should be analyzed as genuine scope phenomena. I will argue that wide scope and specificity have to be kept strictly apart and neither can be reduced to the other. I will show that there are cases where an indefinite has to be assumed to take genuine wide scope – even out of a syntactic island – via a scopeshifting mechanism and that no other mechanism can account for the full range of data. I hope to convince the reader that exceptional wide scope phenomena are a matter of semantics and, more precisely, of scope alone. In other words, genuine wide scope readings can actually be told apart from specific, i.e. apparent wide scope, readings. Exceptional wide scope readings actually do exist and cannot be correctly grasped by other interpretation mechanisms. 20 Note that bestimmt behaves quite differently from gewiss, although both, gewiss and bestimmt, are often treated alike and often both are taken to be the German correspondents to certain.

12


There is a second question that is raised in (Bende-Farkas and Kamp, 2001, p. 86) and pointed out as being an important issue for future research, which will also be addressed in this book: How does the form of an indefinite NP influence its possible interpretations? When drawing the line between genuine wide scope and specific readings, one has to differentiate between different shapes of indefinites. I take bestimmt to be a specificity marker in German. Topical indefinites are often realized with a heavy (typically rising) accent on the determiner (↑EIN Pferd (some horse)) in German. As topical indefinites receive exceptional wide scope due to the topic interpretation mechanism, I predict a different scope-taking behavior of indefinites with accented and unaccented ein as well as differences between specific bestimmt-indefinites and simple ones. Furthermore, it is important to carefully differentiate between simple narrow scope and genuine intermediate scope readings on the one side and functional (wide scope) readings on the other. Such readings are easily confused and often misinterpreted in the literature. A differentiation can (and must) be drawn by similar means as is done in the literature on functional and pair-list readings in the context of questions. Functional readings are independent of exceptional wide scope readings and hence there is no independent reason for a functional approach to exceptional wide scope phenomena, though this seems to be implicitly assumed by all proponents of the choice/Skolem function approaches and has been explicitly claimed by (Winter, 2004). In other words: functional readings and exceptional wide scope are two unrelated phenomena. But, of course, it is possible that indefinites that take exceptional wide scope can receive a functional interpretation if those indefinites or quantifiers can receive such an interpretation in other contexts. These indefinites receive functional wide scope readings, which can be empirically distinguished from simple narrow scope readings. I account for them with a mechanism for the interpretation of functional topics that is a monotonic extension of my mechanism for the interpretation of ordinary topics.

1.5 An Outline of the Proposal My aim is to explain how exceptional wide scope readings can be derived and why they are restricted to a certain class of quantifiers. In brief, I explain these exceptional wide scope readings via the topical status of the involved quantifier. Hence, only topical quantifiers are able to take wide scope out of islands. I make crucial use of two basic formalisms to account for this correlation: first, the concepts of Dynamic Semantics (in particular Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1991), and second Krifka’s (1992) system of structured meanings. Crucially, in the structured meaning approach, an utterance is separated into two information-structurally different parts. In the cases at hand these are the topic αT and the comment αC . Rules guarantee the compositional derivation of the meaning of such structured utterances. At every step, the conventional meaning can be derived by applying the comment to the topic. Furthermore, my analysis is based on Kadmon’s (1985) proposal to reflect the anaphoric potential of a quantifier in the lexical semantics of the quantifier itself. Kadmon (1985) treats bare numeral and modified numeral indefinites alike and represents both kinds as directly introducing


13

plural discourse referents. But only so called exhaustive quantifiers such as at least three linguists introduce a set that exhausts the entire intersection of the restrictor set linguists and the set corresponding to the VP-predicate, whereas non-exhaustive quantifiers such as three linguists introduce a subset of this intersection. The distinction is empirically motivated by the different anaphoric possibilities of sentences following these quantifiers. The lexical semantics of the two quantifiers then looks as follows: (1.22)

n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ]

at least n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

Now, what needs to be explained is that three linguists is a topicable and hence a wide scope quantifier, whereas at least three linguists is not. If an item serves as the topic of a sentence, it is – following Reinhart (1981) – understood to be the address/the link for the context update, which (sloppily speaking) points to a place where the information conveyed by the sentence will be stored during the context update. Individuals and sets make perfect addresses in this sence, but many items, quantifiers in particular, do not provide sensible addresses. And this is why they cannot serve as sentence topics in general. But one can still observe some quantifiers overtly marked as topics, as was pointed out above. Hence these quantifiers apparently are possible sentence topics. Although quantifiers per se do not provide sensible addresses, some of them can still function as topics. What happens in this case is the following: a sensible representative of the entire quantifier is selected that can stand proxy for the quantifier itself. Then an address is created for this representative, which serves as the anchor for the information update. Address creation of a representative eventually comes down formally to the creation of a discourse referent for this representative. If a (topicable) quantifier serves as the topic of an utterance, e.g. an assertion, the common ground update looks schematically as follows: (1.23) Frame ∃P [P is a representative for αT ] & Assert αC (F(P ))

First, a discourse referent for the representative P of the topical quantifier αT is created in a separate Frame-Setting (= topic-establishing) speech act (cf. Jacobs, 1984), and then the comment part αC is applied to (a function F of) this representative P instead of application to the quantifier αT itself. Speech act conjunction is understood as dynamic conjunction that allows for dynamic binding in the sense of Groenendijk and Stokhof (1991). The question is what would be a good candidate to represent the entire quantifier αT . The answer is: a minimal witness set21 MW (αT ) in the sense of Barwise and Cooper (1981) (cf. also Szabolcsi’s (1997b) approach). Finally we end up with the following interpretation schema for utterances containing a topical quantifier αT : (1.24) Frame ∃P [MW (P, αT )] & Assert αC (F(P ))

This formula describes exactly what happens when a quantifier serves as the aboutness topic of a sentence. A minimal witness set P , which is a sensible representative of the topical quantifier αT is selected, and a discourse referent for this set is introduced. In a next step, this set P is treated as the object of the predication αC , which is applied to 21 See

the appendix, Section A.1, for the definition of a minimal witness set.

14


(a function of) it. Note that the topical quantifier αT necessarily takes wide scope over all operators that might occur in the comment part αC , because the Frame-Setting act happens first. Hence, updating the common ground with a quantificational topic αT will necessarily result in a wide scope reading of the quantifier. What exactly F does in (1.24) depends on the (verbal) environment of P and will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6. Note that there is a possibility that the topic-introducing speech act fails, namely when the speaker wants to use a non-existent entity as topic. These are exactly those cases that are conceived of as ‘catastrophic presupposition failure’ elsewhere, illustrated in (1.25). (1.25) The king of France is bald. A formal test that operates on the lexical semantics of quantifiers, dubbed the Topic Condition, decides whether a quantifier can serve as sentence topic or not. To test the ability of a quantifier to serve as an aboutness topic, one compares the aboutness case (i.e. the case where a discourse referent is created) to the standard semantics αC (αT ) the sentence would have disregarding information structure. This comparison is conducted only with respect to certain simple comments. It is checked whether the aboutness topic operation, when applied, would yield a sensible result. The intuition behind the test is that the aboutness function of a topic should not change the semantics of the topic-embedding sentence. A quantifier G fulfills the Topic Condition if for certain general simple cases 1. the creation of the discourse referent has no truth-conditional effect w.r.t. a standard context update, and 2. dynamically speaking, the introduction of a new discourse referent does not destroy already existing anaphoric possibilities, but only adds a new possible topic that can be referred to in subsequent discourse. It will be shown that the Topic Condition is capable of deriving the correct classification of quantifiers into topical/wide scope quantifiers and their complement class. As a main result, all monotone increasing non-exhaustive quantifiers22 are predicted to be topicable. So there is a direct interrelation of non-exhaustivity and topicability. If a monotone increasing quantifier is interpreted non-exhaustively, it should also be interpretable as sentence topic. This explains why three N – being non-exhaustive, cf. (1.22) – is classified as topicable and hence as a wide scope quantifier and why at least three N, as an exhaustive quantifier, is not. As shown above, the common ground will always be updated with the existential statement for a topical quantifier first. This will necessarily result in a widest scope reading. It is, however, well known that one can find examples not only of readings where quantifiers scope out of syntactic islands and take widest scope, but also of intermediate scope readings, as e.g. in the following example in German. (1.26) Jeder Student hat angekündigt, die Party zu verlassen, wenn ↑EIN Dozent every student has announced,

the party to leave,

if

some lecturer

auftaucht. shows-up.

‘Every student announced that he will leave the party if some lecturer shows up.’ 22 See

the appendix, Section A.1.1 for definitions of monotonicity properties.


15

The sentence has an intermediate scope reading in which ein Dozent (some lecturer) takes exceptional scope out of the if -clause, but narrower scope than jeder Student (every student). The reading says that for every student there exists some specific lecturer such that the student would leave the party immediately if the lecturer he picked turns up. This intermediate scope reading comes about as a result of the interpretation of embedded topic-comment structures. In the case of example (1.26), it is the verb ankündigen (to announce) that can be applied to a topic-comment structure. Accordingly, an intermediate scope reading is not available for a variant of sentence (1.26) where the topic-comment structure verb ankündigen (to announce) is missing, as exemplified in the following German example, which only features a widest scope reading. (1.27) Jeder Student verlässt die Party sofort, Every student leaves

wenn ↑EIN Dozent auftaucht.

the party immediately, if

some lecturer shows-up.

‘Every student will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up.’ To account for intermediate scope readings as exemplified in (1.26) I develop an interpretation strategy for embedded topic-comment structures. If there is a nonillocutionary topic-comment structure embedding operator Op (such as the verb ankündigen (to announce)), the existential statement corresponding to the topical part takes scope over the embedding operator – in parallel to the case where a topical indefinite takes scope over an illocutionary operator such as Assert (by way of a separate act of topic establishment), as was discussed above. However, as in this case of embedded topicality the involved operator is not an illocutionary operator, this establishment of a discourse referent does not manifest itself in a separate speech act of topic establishment, but is simply part of the semantics proper and will thus interact with other scopal elements in the same expression. The interpretation schema is as follows: (1.28) ∃P [MW (P, αT )] ∧ Op(αC (F(P ))) Again, the involved conjunction operator has to be interpreted as dynamic conjunction. Finally, I lift the entire system to deal with functional topics. Functional indefinites such as ein Bild von sich (a picture of himself ) can be topical, which is evidenced by the fact that they can appear in left-dislocated position in German, which is a topicmarking position. A functional topic also receives a wide scope reading, namely a functional wide scope reading. A dependent DP such as ein Bild von sich (a picture of himself) is translated as a function from individuals to generalized quantifiers (GQs), assigning every individual x the GQ ‘a picture of x’. Analogously to the non-functional cases, a quantificational topic of this functional type necessitates the creation of a discourse referent that stands proxy for the involved quantifier, if the quantifier passes the Topic Condition. The storage address creation process is hence extended to involve minimal witness functions (MWF ) f , which find a minimal witness set for every quantifier G(y) of the functional generalized quantifier G. Context update rules and Topic Condition involving functional aboutness topics are adapted accordingly.

16


1.6 The Structure of this Book The next chapter, Chapter 2, serves to lay out different views and finally my own view of topicality. I will only deal with sentence topics and not with topics of larger units of discourse. I follow Reinhart (1981) in the assumption that sentence topics do not have to be familiar to the hearer, which is why indefinites can be topical when they constitute the entity that the sentence is about. There are several ways of overt topic marking involving syntactic, morphological, and intonational means. I will use these devices to illustrate, against common assumptions, that some, but not all quantifiers can be topical. It will be shown that singular indefinites – recall that I count indefinites among the class of quantifiers –, unmodified numeral indefinites, and (plural) universal quantifiers can be overtly marked as topics. I will mostly look at German and English data and consider data from other languages only sporadically. My conclusions will therefore only hold for German and possibly English, but I hope that it can be shown in the future that the consequences for topicality and wide scope are actually languageindependent. We will see that only those quantifiers that have been observed as overtly topic-marked can also be conceptually conceived of as possible sentence topics. All remaining quantifiers cannot serve as sentence topics. One important part of this book is dedicated to the question of why this is so. Chapter 3 will set the stage for subsequent discussion about exceptional wide scope phenomena. Therefore, I thoroughly differentiate between apparent and genuine scope phenomena. It is widely acknowledged that indefinites can appear to take wide scope, although in fact they are interpreted with narrow scope. The most common mechanisms to derive such pseudoscope readings (borrowing a term from Kratzer, 1998) is via engaging some kind of speaker’s reference or ‘extreme’ domain restriction towards a singleton set. I also count specific readings among the class of pseudoscope readings. My view of specificity is built on the ones advocated by Ioup (1977) and Hintikka (1986): I take it that specific readings only come about in the context of opaque operators and they can be understood as wide scope readings with respect to the involved operator. I will not deal with the question how such specific readings exactly come about and hence, any mechanism that can deal with the opaque/transparent contrast can be adopted. What is important for my needs is to set apart these specific readings in the context of opaque operators from genuine wide scope readings in truly transparent contexts. I will illustrate that genuine wide scope readings actually exist and that they can be accounted for only by a scope-shifting mechanism. Furthermore, Chapter 3 will deal with the differentiation between apparent and genuine narrow scope readings. I will provide means to distinguish between functional readings, which are co-variation readings that depend on the value of some other operator and are therefore easily mixed up with narrow scope readings, and genuine narrow scope readings. Only after having carefully differentiated between these different sorts of apparent and genuine wide and narrow scope readings are we prepared to investigate the exceptional wide scope phenomena, which this book aims to explain. Before presenting my own approach to exceptional wide scope, Chapter 4 discusses the phenomena at hand, including a discussion of the class of quantifiers that exhibit exceptional wide scope, and the different approaches that have been proposed


17

to handle these phenomena. First, we will observe that the class of quantifiers that allow for exceptional wide scope is the same as the class of quantifiers that have been observed with overt topic markings (as documented in Chapter 2). I will also discuss exceptional wide intermediate scope phenomena, i.e. readings where indefinites take exceptional wide scope out of scope islands, but yet narrower scope than some other c-commanding operator. In the course of the discussion of the approaches that have been proposed in the literature so far to account for such – exceptional – widest and intermediate scope readings, it will turn out that none of the approaches makes correct predictions about the class of wide scope quantifiers, if they make any predictions at all and do not simply stipulate the class of quantifiers/indefinites subject to the proposed mechanisms. There are four different main branches of approaches towards exceptional wide scope: approaches relying on speaker’s reference, approaches that are built on the idea of (extreme) domain restriction, choice/Skolem function approaches, and presuppositional approaches, which assume that ‘specific’ indefinites presuppose their lexical content. Only the last class of these approaches makes use of an actual scopeshifting mechanism, whereas all the others entertain pseudoscope mechanisms of all different sorts. I will point out the weaknesses of these existing approaches, which mostly stem from the fact that they can only account for apparent wide scope and not for genuine wide scope. The presuppositional approaches, which can account for genuine wide scope readings, because they make use of a scope-shifting mechanism, will be shown to suffer from serious conceptual problems. In Chapter 5, I discuss the different interpretative effects of topicality. I show that topical indefinites always constitute aboutness topics of the sentences under investigation. The aboutness relation can exist in a direct or a more indirect way. I understand the topical subjects of generic and quantificational variability sentences as indirect aboutness topics, where the indefinites define the situations that the sentences are about. Topical indefinites that take wide scope constitute direct aboutness topics. Indirect aboutness topics are only discussed very briefly and the remainder of the book is dedicated to the explanation of the semantic effects of direct aboutness topics. I will provide data showing that aboutness topicality actually invokes wide scope of the involved topical quantifier as opposed to specificity or referentiality. Chapter 5 closes with a brief discussion of two preceding approaches from the literature that correlate topicality and wide scope. Chapter 6 outlines my interpretation mechanism of topical quantifiers. As argued in Chapter 5, topical quantifiers receive wide scope. As my mechanism is an informationstructural mechanism that is not sensitive to syntactic constraints, it also derives exceptional wide scope out of scope islands for topical quantifiers. The prediction is that only topical quantifiers can receive exceptional wide scope, which is indeed confirmed by the facts. I develop a monotonic extension of my approach interpreting topical quantifiers that can correctly deal with functional entities also, so that I can handle the functional wide scope readings that I have discussed in Chapter 3. Exceptional wide intermediate scope readings that have been pointed out to exist and discussed in Chapter 4 are derived by means of nested topic-comment structures. A topic always takes wide scope only with respect to the topic-comment structure it is a component of. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the main results.

Chapter 2

Topicality The concept of topicality has been around for many years, partly under different notions (cf. e.g. ‘das psychologische Subjekt’ (the psychological subject) in Paul, 1880). Topicality is furthermore understood in extremely different ways. In 1981, Reinhart (1981, p. 4) writes: Although the linguistic role of the relation TOPIC OF is widely acknowledged, there is no accepted definition for it and not even full agreement on the intuitions of what counts as topic. As far as I can surmise, the situation is no different 25 years later. It lies beyond the scope of this book to give a detailed overview of and discuss all the different notions of topicality that have been proposed during the last around 100 years of research on information structure. I will hence only present my own view of topicality and discuss the necessary preconditions for it.1 It will turn out that topic can be seen as an entirely conceptual notion, independent of any syntactic, morphological or intonational markings. A topic can be simply conceived of as being what a sentence is about. However, certain syntactic structures, morphologic markers and intonational means have been argued to indicate the topical status of a constituent. Hence topicality is testable via such means. I will present some of the methods that have been proposed in the literature. Here, also, I cannot give an exhaustive list. I will then proceed to show that many quantifiers cannot be marked as topical, which I take to indicate that these quantifiers cannot be interpreted as topics. The question why this is so will be answered in the remainder of this book.

2.1 Defining Topicality From Chapter 1 you may recall that according to Molnár (1993) the topic-comment dichotomy is just one of three important information-structural dichotomies, the other two being focus-background and theme-rheme. The topic-comment dichotomy relates 1 For a broader overview of the different notions of topicality, the reader is referred to (Moln´ ar, 1993) and (McNally, 1998).

C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 2,

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to the factual aspect of an utterance, whereas the other two relate to concerns of the speaker and hearer, respectively. Discourse givenness, which is crucial from the hearer’s point of view, is the most important feature for defining the theme-rheme distinction. Relevance from the speaker’s viewpoint is the important notion for a definition of focus vs. background. Both properties are of less importance for the notion of topicality. In particular, following this distinction, there is no problem with nondiscourse given topics, as will be shown in this section. First of all, one has to differentiate between discourse and sentence topics. The first item refers to topics of an information unit consisting of several sentences and the second to those of just one single sentence. I will only investigate sentence topics and disregard topicality in the context of larger bits of discourse. The reader is referred to (McNally, 1998) for a presentation and discussion of the relationship of discourse and sentence topicality. Two concepts play an important role for the investigation of sentence topics: aboutness and familiarity. Let us start with the concept aboutness.

2.1.1 Aboutness Definition 2.1 Under the aboutness concept, a sentence topic is what the sentence is about. To illustrate, consider the following sentences. (2.1)

a. Yesterday, Clarissa visited Dena. b. Yesterday, Dena was visited by Clarissa. c. The telephone rang.

While (2.1a) is most naturally understood as conveying some information about Clarissa, (2.1b) tells us something about Dena. The topic-comment structure of the two sentences differ in that (2.1a) establishes Clarissa as topic, whereas in (2.1b) Dena is the natural choice for the topic. Truth-conditionally though, both sentences have exactly the same meaning. Sentence (2.1c) is an example of an antitopic sentence2 (see Jacobs, 2001, p. 646). Antitopic sentences are often referred to as event-reporting, all-new or thetic sentences (cf. also Lambrecht, 1994, pp. 137ff.). In a thetic sentence, all information is conveyed in one step, without separation into an entity on the one side and saying something about it on the other. Sentences that contain topics such as (2.1a,b) can be referred to as categorical sentences. The thetic/categoricaldistinction was originally introduced as a distinction between types of judgments by the philosopher Franz Brentano and further investigated by his student Anton Marty. In their works it is argued that there are two different judgment forms: the categorical and the thetic judgment (see Kuroda, 1972 or Ladusaw, 1994 for an overview of the thetic/categorical-distinction). A categorical judgment is made in two steps, i.e. by the act of recognition of that which is to be made the subject [the topic in our terminology, 2 Antitopic sentences in Jacobs’ (2001) sense must not be confused with what Lambrecht (1994) calls antitopics. These are topical elements in the right periphery of a sentence.

CHAPTER 2. TOPICALITY

21

CE], and the other, the act of affirming or denying what is expressed by the predicate about the subject (Kuroda, 1972, p. 154). Such a judgment corresponds straightforwardly to what a sentence with a topic expresses. A thetic judgment, on the other hand, is made in one single step; it is used to report the perception of a situation. Such a judgment corresponds most naturally with antitopic/topicless sentences. Following linguistic tradition, I will use the thetic/categorical-distinction to directly describe sentence forms that correspond to the judgment types indicated above. A thetic sentence then is to be understood as a sentence that represents a thetic judgment.

2.1.2

Familiarity

There has been a long lasting debate about whether only already known and preestablished entities are possible sentence topics, i.e. items under discussion, or whether it is possible to establish and talk about a topic at the same time. In other words, the question is whether discourse givenness or familiarity is an obligatory feature of topics. Some scholars (e.g. Hockett, 1958; Kuno, 1972; Gundel, 1985, 1988; Portner and Yabushita, 1998; Hedberg, 1990) indeed subscribe to this view.3 In anticipation of my results, I will take the opposite view. I follow Reinhart (1981) and adopt the view that familiarity is not an obligatory property of topics. But let me lay out the familiarity view of topicality first. Intuitively, familiarity can be grasped as existence in a discourse model. Definition 2.2 Under the familiarity concept, a sentence topic is an established object that has already been introduced into the discourse model (or is existent in the discourse model due to world knowledge). Under the familiarity view, discourse-givenness is seen as a requirement for the topical entity. The topical entity must not be discourse-new, but has to already be existent in the common ground or otherwise familiar to the speaker, e.g. via general (world) knowledge. It is obvious that even if familiarity were a necessary property of topics, it cannot be a sufficient one. There are often many discourse old expressions in one sentence, which cannot all be sentence topics, of course. The following quote from (Hockett, 1958, p. 201) suggests that topics are always familiar, but that the aboutness property still is the defining property: The most general characteristic of predicative constructions is suggested by the terms ‘topic’ and ‘comment’ [. . .]: the speaker announces a topic and then says something about it. 3 The importance of the concept of givenness to topics is emphasized also in the work of the representatives of the so-called Prague School, represented e.g. by Petr Sgall, Jan Firbas, or Eva Hajiˇcová, who build on insights of the members of the Cercle linguistique de Prague, especially represented by Vilém Mathesius. For discussion of the role of discourse givenness for the definition of theme, see e.g. (Firbas, 1964). Note that what is referred to as theme in their terminology corresponds to what others call topic. Often the different aspects of information structuring pointed out in the introduction (theme-rheme, topic-comment, focus-background) are not kept apart.

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First, something is introduced and second, when it is already known, it is used, i.e. something is said about it. Note that Hockett (1958) argues that typically the grammatical subject is the topic of a sentence, but he is well aware of exceptions to this general tendency. His defining property is the aboutness relation of the topic with respect to the rest of the sentence. An important question that arises immediately and that is answered quite differently in different approaches is the question of what counts as discourse-given. Kuno (1972), who uses the term theme for what we call topic and anaphoric for given, argues that topics have to be items either explicitly introduced in previous discourse or ones that are permanently in the hearer’s background (as e.g. the sun). However, anaphoric items do not necessarily have to represent old information in the sense that what is conveyed in the semantic relation in which they appear is already known. A certain item can be given, but still represent the new information part of a sentence in which it appears. Consider the following example from (Kuno, 1972, p. 272). (2.2)

a. Among John, Mary, and Tom, who is the oldest? b. TOM is the oldest.

Tom in (2.2b) is given, but still represents new information. In the terminology I introduced above, we would say that Tom constitutes the focus and the rheme of the sentence, although it is discourse-given. Hence, not all anaphoric items represent old information parts. What does hold, so Kuno claims, is the following: themes (topics) are necessarily anaphoric. Furthermore, Kuno distinguishes between predictable and unpredictable themes. Predictable themes correspond to continuing topics and unpredictable ones can be seen as topic changes. The former type is exemplified by John in (2.3b), the latter by John in (2.4) (both from Kuno, 1972, p. 308). (2.3)

a. Will John do it? b. If he can, John will do it.

(2.4)

a. Mary is a singer, and John is a composer.

A similar point is made by Gundel (1988), who also holds the view that topics must be familiar and emphasizes that there are different senses of familiarity. First, she defines relational familiarity as to mean that a topical expression is given in relation to its comment (and the comment is new in relation to the topic). Second, she defines referential familiarity, where givenness is to be understood as givenness of the referent of the topical expression, i.e. where the referent is known to the speaker and the hearer. She furthermore differentiates between two different kinds of referential familiarity: assumed familiarity, which demands that the hearer have previous knowledge of the entity under discussion4 and activated referentiality, which holds for an entity that the speaker’s and hearer’s attention is already focused on. Gundel points out that topics always have to fulfill relational familiarity and assumed familiarity, but they can, of course, be inactivated, which is the case when a topic-shift occurs. As is easy to see, Gundel draws the same distinctions as Kuno. Her relational familiarity corresponds 4 She

attributes the term and her notion of assumed familiarity to (Prince, 1981).


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to Kuno’s oldness criterion. Her assumed familiarity corresponds to his anaphoricity constraint and her activated familiarity is what Kuno dubs predictability.

2.1.3

Topics as Entities

There is some disagreement with respect to the question of whether it is the linguistic constituent contained in the sentence that is the topic of the sentence or whether it is the denotation of the linguistic entity. Most linguists (to mention just a few: Dahl, 1974; Gundel, 1985, 1988; Hedberg, 1990; Portner and Yabushita, 1998) hold the second view, i.e. that sentences are about the referents of linguistic entities, which, of course, makes perfect sense, because it is intuitively felt that sentences are about ‘real world’ entities (or their representations in the speaker’s/hearer’s mental models) and not about linguistic expressions (for further discussion see also Lambrecht, 1994, pp. 127–28). It has been argued (e.g. by Dahl, 1974) that, under this view, where topics constitute real world entities, only referential expressions can be topical. In other words, definites and names, but not quantifiers, which are not referential, would be possible sentence topics.5 Definite would also include generic readings of bare plurals as in Men are mortal, which, as has been pointed out by (Kuno, 1972) and (Kuroda, 1972), can also be understood as topics. The ‘referent’ in this case would be the entire kind or class that the generic utterance is made about (men in this case).

2.1.4

Indefinite Topics

The view that topical items have to be familiar cannot be upheld, however. Reinhart (1981, 2004) has argued extensively and convincingly that not only definites and names are possible topics, but also indefinites. She concluded that familiarity cannot be an obligatory property of topics. This view has also been defended by Molnár (1993) and Frey (2000, 2004a). Recall examples (1.18a,b) from the last chapter, repeated below as (2.5a,b), which are ‘about’ the individual introduced by the indefinite, intuitively speaking. Furthermore, the indefinites occur left dislocated, in a position that has been argued by Frey (2000, 2004b) to host topical constituents only. (2.5)

a. EInen Politiker, den kennt jeder. some politician RP knows everybody

‘One politician everybody knows.’ ¨ das wollte einst nach Frankreich reisen. b. Ein kleines MADchen, a

little

girl

RP wanted once to

France

travel

‘Once, a little girl wanted to travel to France.’ Other suggestive examples can be found when looking at sentences with stative verbs, which are usually assumed to exclude a thetic interpretation of the sentence in question 5 I will show later on in this chapter that there are cases of quantifiers that can be understood as topics – this is possible only under certain circumstances, namely when a sensible representative for the quantifier, which is a set (i.e. referring to a set in the world), can be found. Under this view, the cases of topical quantifiers also do not constitute counterexamples to the assumption that topics are referential (in some broader sense).

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(see Krifka et al., 1995). Here, the subject needs to be interpreted as topical. Consider the beginning of the fairy tail König Drosselbart (King Thrushbeard). ¨ hatte eine Tochter, die war so u¨ beraus schön, dass . . . (2.6) Ein KOnig a

king

had a

daughter who/she was so overwhelmingly pretty that

‘A king had a daughter who was beautiful beyond all measure, . . .’ The subject of the main clause is indefinite (ein König (a king)) and the predicate is a stative verb. Hence, the indefinite needs to be interpreted as topical.6 Yet, indefinites behave somewhat inconsistently. Sometimes they seem to be perfect sentence topics (as in the previous examples), whereas on other occasions, sentences with an indefinite marked for topicality are unacceptable. (2.7)

??

Ein FENster, das hat Peter geöffnet.

a

window

RP has Peter opened

In light of the fact that topics are regarded as entities (as discussed above) and the work of Fodor and Sag (1982), who argue that indefinites are ambiguous between a referential and a quantificational interpretation, Reinhart (1981) proposes that only referential indefinites can be interpreted as topics. What Reinhart calls a referential indefinite is called a specific indefinite or a wide scope indefinite in other approaches. (Cresti, 1995; Portner and Yabushita, 2001; Portner, 2002) explicitly correlate topicality with specificity. My own approach (Ebert and Endriss, 2004 and Chapters 5, 6) correlates topicality and wide scope. These approaches all predict that purely unspecific/narrow scope indefinites cannot be topical. We will see examples in the next section which show that, indeed, such indefinites cannot be marked as topical by syntactic or morphological means. Let me point out here that the proposal I will present in subsequent chapters makes the prediction that all topical indefinites necessarily take wide scope, which does not imply that they are necessarily specific. We will see in the next chapter that wide scope and specificity are indeed different concepts that have to be kept apart. In fact, Ward and Prince (1991) have challenged the claim that topical indefinites have to be specific or referential and give examples for what they take to be unspecific topical indefinites such as e.g. a great body in the following example (see Ward and Prince, 1991, ex. (7a)). Note that the authors suppose that syntactically topicalized DPs are topical. (2.8) (Brains you are born with.) A great body you have to work on. [Brook Shields, in health club commercial] Ward and Prince (1991) argue for a certain variant of a familiarity restriction to hold for topics (including topical indefinites), namely that topics have to be either familiar or relate to one or more familiar entities via a salient (partially ordered) set-relation. Although topical indefinites can indeed be unspecific, their line of argument is still open for discussion. First, the authors do not clarify their view of specificity, which 6 I thank Manfred Krifka for pointing me to the importance of such examples. Notice though that Lambrecht (1994, p. 352, Chapter 4, endnote 33) regards such beginnings of fairy tales as rhetorically motivated abbreviations of the conventional formula [= there-sentences with subsequent elaborations on the introduced entity, CE] and argues that they could hardly occur in spontaneous conversation.


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makes it hard to follow their examples. I presume that they hold an epistemic view of specificity, which is the view that for a specific indefinite to be used the speaker has to have a referent in mind. And second, in most of their examples, the indefinite under discussion does not necessarily have to be interpreted as topical, because it is not unquestionably marked as topical. The involved indefinite might only appear to be topic-marked, although, in fact, it is not, as is the case for example (2.8). I will show in Section 5.3.2 of Chapter 5 that the fronted indefinite in the second sentence of (2.8) is actually not topical. The fronting operation is licensed by a contrastive interpretation (a great body vs. brains). In any case, the examples of Ward and Prince (1991) do not challenge my approach, which forces topical indefinites to take wide scope. I can show that the unspecific topical indefinites they present have to take wide scope when other scope-inducing elements are inserted. Unfortunately, a discussion of their examples has to be deferred to a point when all theoretical assumptions and the notions that are needed have been introduced. We will come back to them in Chapter 5. Besides the examples in (Ward and Prince, 1991), which suggest that indefinite topics are less restricted than usually assumed (i.e. that they can be unspecific), Gundel (1985) (and Hedberg, 1990 building on her system) also raises doubt that specificity is an obligatory feature of topical indefinites. However, the conclusion Gundel draws is quite different from the one drawn in (Ward and Prince, 1991), namely that – besides some exceptions to the rule – indefinites cannot be topical at all, no matter if they are specific or unspecific. Gundel (1988) argues that the familiarity criterion of topics, which is a pragmatic principle, generally bars indefinites from topic positions. She concludes that the very few exceptions one finds have to be seen as exceptions to the rule, where the familiarity criterion, being a pragmatic principle, is suspended or weakened for certain rhetorical effects. She notes in support of her claim that indefinite topics are restricted to certain constructions, cannot appear in combination with types of sentences other than assertions, and always need an anchor to a familiar entity. The indefinite a daughter of a friend of mine in (2.9) (from Gundel, 1985, ex. 13, p. 88) would be anchored to the familiar expression me and is thus allowed to serve as topic according to Gundel. (Note that she takes extraposed elements to be necessarily topical.) (2.9) A daughter of a friend of mine, she got her BA in two years. However, the restriction that indefinite topics always have to be anchored to a familiar entity can be shown not to hold, as evidenced by the examples in (2.5). Portner and Yabushita (1998), who also hold the view that topics are necessarily familiar and referential, discuss indefinite topics, which are instances of – in their view: seemingly – non-familiar topics. They claim that in these cases it is not the indefinite itself which is topical, but only the NP-complement. Their example is given in (2.10) (see Portner and Yabushita, 1998, p. 120, footnote 2). (2.10) Three boys arrived. One, I like – but the others... Here, one is fronted and could therefore be conceived of as topical. However, in (2.10), one should be most naturally interpreted as focus and the implicit restrictor boy can be taken to be topical, as argued by Portner and Yabushita (1998). Another option to interpret the sentence would be that the entire quantifier one plus the implicit/elided

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restrictor is topical, where one is additionally marked for focus. Be this as it may, these are clearly not the only cases of quantificational topics. We have already seen examples where it is not plausible to assume that only the NP-complement of the dislocated indefinite is topical (namely examples (2.5a,b), see also e.g. (2.11b), below). Hence I conclude that (unfamiliar and unspecific) indefinites can indeed be topical.

2.1.5

Reinhart (1981)

I follow Reinhart’s conception of aboutness topicality (which is based on Strawson, 1964). According to Reinhart (1981), the fact that most sentence topics are familiar is not an inherent property of the topics themselves, but rather due to general requirements on discourse structure. In a coherent discourse, two contiguous sentences have to be linked to each other – either because they give information about the same referent or because there is an obvious relation between the two propositions expressed in the two sentences. Most discourses are linked by a referential link. This is the reason why most topics are discourse old. As mentioned above, Reinhart holds the view that discourse-new items can represent topical information, which she proves using several tests that had previously been proclaimed to be tests for topicality in the literature. In particular, she points out that there is nothing wrong with indefinite topics, which necessarily represent new information (for this novelty condition with respect to indefinites see Heim, 1982). (2.11)

a. Anne has eaten all the bananas. b. Some horse has eaten all the bananas.

Intuitively, (2.11a) appears to be about Anne in the same way as (2.11b) is about some (particular) horse. Reinhart takes this intuition seriously and then argues in detail that indefinites can be sentence topics just as well as other (in her terminology:) referential DPs can. The question that suggests itself and which Reinhart wants to answer is what it could mean for an expression to be about something. Reinhart restricts herself to DP-topics to keep things as simple as possible, though she is aware of the fact that there might well be topics of other categories such as frame setting adverbs etc. Reinhart uses the concept of a context set, as introduced by Stalnaker (1978). The context set represents the shared knowledge of a speaker and a hearer at a given point of discourse. This context can be updated by adding new propositions to the context set according to the utterances made. Reinhart notes that the context set as proposed in (Stalnaker, 1978) is not organized in any way and suggests to extend it with respect to the organization of information. Her metaphor is the organization of a library catalogue, which is comparable to Heim’s (1982) file change semantics (as Reinhart acknowledges herself). In this metaphor, each book entry corresponds to a proposition. The idea is that all the information of the library is organized in such a way that it is stored under a certain subject or keyword. This keyword now corresponds to a topic. The topic of a sentence is the address where the remaining information of the proposition made is stored. The topic hence represents the sorting key where the information that is known about it is


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stored. This information can then be accessed via the topic entry. The same idea is pursued by Vallduv´ı (1992) and implemented by Portner and Yabushita (1998), though the latter do not account for the case of non-familiar topics. In Reinhart’s view, [s]entence topics [...] are one of the means available in the language to organize, or classify the information exchanged in linguistic communication (Reinhart, 1981, p. 24). Topics thus have an information structuring function in the very literal sense of the word. Portner and Yabushita (1998) give examples from Japanese, which show that this information organization actually has some testable effects. They claim that information stored under a certain entity is easily recoverable via this entity, whereas information that is not associated with this entity, but has been attached to it otherwise, is not as easily processed. Their argument builds on the following examples (see Portner and Yabushita, 1998, pp. 120–21). (2.12)

a. [Chiisana kodomo o small

child

tsureta onna-no-hito]2 ga

ACC taking woman2

-kimashita. Kanojo wa chikin fraido steeki o -came

she

T OP chicken fried

mazu haitte

N OM first

entering

chuumon

steak ACC order

shimashita did

‘A woman with a small child came in first, and she ordered chicken fried steak.’ b. Tsugini, [tenisuraketto o motta waki otoko-no-hito]3 ga next

tennis racket

ACC holding young man3

yatte-kimashita. Kare3 wa konojo ni came

ni

he3

biiru o

T OP she

raketto o

N OM

tewatashite, baa

DAT racket ACC handed

bar

tori ni ikimashita.

DAT beer ACC get to went

‘Next, a young man holding a tennis racket came in. He handed the racket to her, and went to the bar to get a beer.’ c. Betsu no otoko-no-hito to omna-no-hito ga okurete kimashita. other of man

Eiga o

mini itte-ita

and woman

N OM being late came

yoo-deshita.

movie ACC watch going-were seemed

‘Another man and woman, who were late, came in. They seemed to have been to a movie.’ In the second sentence of (2.12a), the woman is the topic (which is indicated by the topical marker wa attached to kanojo (she)). The information that she ordered a chicken fried steak is hence stored under her entry. Accordingly, the information conveyed by the second sentence of (2.12b) (that a man (who had just entered) handed a racket to the woman) is stored under the man’s and not under the woman’s entry, because the man is the sentence’s topic (indicated by the wa). The exact contents of (2.12c) is irrelevant for our concerns. It just serves to lead the hearer’s attention to something else. Consider now the possible continuation in (2.13a) vs. the continuation in (2.13b), which is degraded.

28


a. Chikin fraido steeki o chicken fried

chuumon shita omna-no-hito2 ga

steak ACC order

did

woman2

ichiban

N OM first

sakini kaerimashita. early returned

b.

‘The woman who ordered a chicken fried steak left first.’ ?? Otoko-no-hite3 ga reketto o tewatashita onna-no-hito2 ga man3

N OM racket ACC handed

woman3

N OM

ichiban sakini kaerimashita. first

early returned

‘The woman who the man handed a racket to left first.’ Portner and Yabushita say that the continuation in (2.13b) is not as good as the one in (2.13a). They say this is because the information that the woman was given the tennis racket is not stored under the entry for the woman, but rather under the one for the man.7 The authors conclude that the organization of information actually has an influence on linguistic phenomena. Reinhart formally represents this information structuring with a set of possible pragmatic assertions (PPA) for a given sentence s, where φ is the proposition expressed by s. (2.14)

PPA(s) := {φ} ∪ {hα, φi : α is the interpretation of an NP in s}

If an utterance s is made in a context c, a specific element hαi , φi of the PPA is chosen by a selection function, where αi is the aboutness topic of φ. If the sentence has no topic, the selection function yields the element φ. The chosen element then is used to update c. Reinhart assumes that this updating mechanism proceeds in a very specific manner.8 1. The familiarity case: Given an element hαi , φi of the PPA, the proposition φ corresponding to sentence s will be checked against all other information already stored under entry αi . If it does not contradict it, the context will be updated, and the new information φ will be stored under αi . This procedure can only be undergone if the topic αi is familiar. 2. The new topic case: If no entry αi already exists in the context, as in the case of non-familiar topics such as indefinites, an entry has to be created, and the information φ is stored under this newly created entry. The selection function works on pragmatic grounds, i.e. it chooses an element from the PPA that is pragmatically adequate. Apart from the constraint that point (1) (discourse 7 Portner and Yabushita (1998) note that the clumsiness of the relative clause construction in (2.13b) can be softened if the original construction is replaced by raketto o uketotta onna-no-hito (woman who received a racket). Still, this modification of (2.13b) would remain a less suitable continuation than (2.13a). 8 As pointed out to me by Ede Zimmermann, this formalization of the topic-comment structure is certainly too simplistic. In particular, assertions of the sort R(a, a) would allow for only one structuring into topic and comment, namely ha, R(a, a)i, where it is not clear which a would constitute the topical part. Furthermore, it would be difficult to give a coherent definition of comment, which is usually understood as the complement of topic.


29

old entities as topics) is given priority over point (2) (discourse new entities as topics), Reinhart formulates further conditions on the selection function, but she concedes that more work needs to be done here (see Reinhart, 1981, pp. 29ff. for further details). In the case of certain topic constructions (e.g. left dislocation in German or topicalization in English), Reinhart suggests not restricting the selection function, but rather narrowing down the PPA. Under the assumption that left dislocation syntactically marks the dislocated element as topic, the PPA should only contain pairs hαi , φi with αi representing the dislocated element, as only αi can possibly be the topic of φ. Likewise, phrases that may not function as topics, to which Reinhart counts (genuine, i.e. non-indefinite) quantifiers, should also never be the first component of an element of any PPA. Reinhart’s claim that there is still a lot of work needed to specify the exact conditions on the selection function is still true today. However, this book will not explore the nature of the selection function, but rather the second component that Reinhart mentions: the correct restriction of the PPA. Reinhart would exclude all (strong) quantifiers as possible topics and only allow for referential entities, which in her view include indefinites. Recall that I count indefinites among the class of quantifiers. I want to show exactly which quantifiers are excluded as topics, i.e. I will show which ones can never turn up as the first component of an element in a PPA, and which quantificational expressions can be conceived of as possible sentence topics. As already pointed out by Reinhart, indefinites are, of course, among the ones that can be topical. However, I will show that it is only a proper subclass of the indefinites, and most importantly, I want to show why this is so.

2.2 Topic Tests and Topical Quantifiers Generally, quantifiers have been claimed to be poor candidates for sentence topics, which is probably why there has not been a thorough investigation of different quantifiers that serve as topics. For example, Frey (2004a) agues that the fact that quantifiers cannot be sentence topics follows from the overall concept of topicality – from the aboutness concept as well as from the familiarity concept. In fact, quantifiers do not refer back to already introduced referents. They introduce new discourse referents themselves and therefore will never meet the familiarity criterion. This is unproblematic as we have seen above, because topicality can be defined without reference to any familiarity concept. However, intuitively, they also serve poorly as an ‘address’ in the sense of (Reinhart, 1981), where the remaining sentence information can be stored. Nevertheless, we have seen that there are several exceptions. Certain indefinites have been shown to appear as topics quite frequently. The exceptional behavior of indefinites in this respect is usually explained by their ‘referential’ status. It is claimed that indefinites can receive a referential interpretation and that only such referential indefinites can be sentence topics, because these can easily serve as a ‘storage address’. In this section, I will investigate which quantifiers can be topical and which ones cannot. I will conduct this investigation by looking at overt topic-marking devices in different languages, but concentrate on topic-marking strategies in German and English.

30


Although topics certainly do not have to be overtly marked as topical (e.g. a sentence’s grammatical subject is often understood as its topic without any morphological or syntactic marking in English or German), there are means to overtly mark a sentence topic. I will present and discuss some of these means and investigate which quantifiers can be used as topics by using these devices. The list of topic-marking devices will certainly not be exhaustive. It will, however, cover the most common and reliable ones among the topic tests.9

2.2.1

Simple Tests

As argued above, topicality is best understood in the aboutness sense. Usually, one has quite good intuitions concerning what a specific sentence is about. Let us reconsider example (2.1a), repeated here as (2.15). (2.15) Yesterday, Clarissa visited Dena. Intuitively, this sentence tells us something about Clarissa, i.e. that she visited Dena. This intuition can be made even stronger if we let (2.16) precede our example in (2.15). (2.16) I will tell you something about Clarissa. In continuation of (2.16), sentence (2.15) sounds perfectly natural and seems to give us information about Clarissa. If, on the other hand, (2.15) is preceded by (2.17), the sentence sounds less natural under the ‘neutral’ intonation and certainly does not seem to tell us anything about Clarissa. (2.17) I will tell you something about Dena. We rather feel that we are learning something about Dena here.10 Probably the best way to continue (2.17) and convey the information in (2.15) would be by uttering (2.1b), repeated here as (2.19). (2.19) Yesterday, Dena was visited by Clarissa. With respect to the examples discussed, it seems that one intuitively knows what the involved sentences are about. We also have a test at hand that helps to back up our intuitions. Supposing that in a sentence s there is an item x which is believed to be the aboutness topic of s, we can test our intuitions by checking whether s still sounds fine if it is preceded by I will tell you something about x. If s sounds unnatural, x cannot 9 See e.g. also (Kallulli, 1999), where it is argued that direct object doubling clitics in Albanian and Greek indicate the topical status of the involved phrases. This might also be an appropriate means to overtly test for topicality. However, throughout her thesis, Kallulli (1999) uses non-focal and topical as synonymous. As she argues that in fact focus is the decisive feature that determines the derivations and topic is just considered to be the complement, her notion of topicality is certainly very different from what I would regard as topic in line with (Frey, 2001; Reinhart, 1981, and others). 10 If the example sentences are not marked for any special intonation, I assume that they are pronounced ‘neutrally’, i.e. with the same accent pattern as if they were uttered out of context. It is not uncontroversial that a ‘neutral stress pattern’ actually exists. For a short discussion of this see (Reinhart, 1995, Chapter 3). Sentence (2.15) as a follow-up sentence to (2.17) would sound much better with a ‘non-neutral’ stress pattern as in (2.18).

(2.18) Yesterday, ClaRIssa visited Dena.


31

be the aboutness topic of s. If s still sounds natural, x is at least a likely candidate to function as the topic for s. Such tests have been proposed and are used quite frequently in the literature. For example Reinhart (1981) proposes the following method to test the aboutness status of some item: if a sentence s with the assumed topic x can be safely paraphrased by It was reported of x that s, the aboutness topic of s is x. The problem with these tests is that they heavily rely on rather vague intuitions that are not independently verifiable. Furthermore, these tests are not a means by which to determine whether or not a certain quantifier can be regarded as the aboutness topic of a sentence. This is so because they are not applicable to items that introduce new discourse referents to the discourse model, as do indefinites or quantifiers in general (cf. the ‘novelty condition’ from (Heim, 1982)). Consider example (2.11b), repeated below as (2.20), which contains the indefinite some horse. (2.20) Some horse has eaten all the bananas. Suppose it is to be tested whether some horse is the aboutness topic of (2.20). The aboutness test would tell us to replace x with some horse in I will tell you something about x resulting in (2.21) I will tell you something about some horse. We would then have to check whether (2.20) still sounds natural if it follows (2.21). As has just been pointed out, indefinites (and quantifiers in general) can never refer back to already introduced entities. The indefinite some horse in (2.20) and (2.21) therefore can only refer to different entities (if they refer at all). Hence, we cannot use this test to elucidate the aboutness status of indefinites and quantifiers. However, the test could be modified slightly in the following way. In the target sentence the assumed topic could be replaced by a corresponding pronoun. (2.22)

a. I will tell you something about some horse. b. It has eaten all the bananas.

As (2.22) sounds perfectly natural, we conclude that some horse is the aboutness topic of (2.20). However, this test would only work for dynamic quantifiers because it makes use of intersentential reference. In order to circumvent this complication, one could use the test proposed in (Reinhart, 1981), which involves only intrasentential anaphora. (2.23) It has been reported about some horse that it has eaten all the bananas. However, it is not guaranteed that replacing the quantifier in the target sentence by a pronoun is harmless in all aspects.11 In order to obtain more reliable results, we have to base the investigation of quantificational topics on other tests. 11 See e.g. (Reinhart, 1981, footnote 6), who reports that the aboutness test fails for generic indefinites in the singular, although Reinhart (1981) assumes that generic indefinites are topical.

32


2.2.2

Syntactic Marking

The German middle field position Topics are usually presumed to appear in the prefield of German clauses (cf. e.g. Molnár, 1993; Jacobs, 2001). But the German prefield can host more than topics. It can host any phrase, the only constraint being that it has to be one constituent. In particular, there is no information-structural restriction on what can be located in the German prefield. Topics (cf. example 2.24a), (narrowly) focused parts (2.24b) as well as phrases that are neither focus nor topic (2.24c) can be found in this position (cf. Frey, 2005). (2.24)

a. Tell me something about Clarissa. Clarissa hat heute einen TEST geschrieben. Clarissa has today a

test

written

‘Clarissa took a test today.’ b. Who did you see yesterday? Clarissa or Dena? ClaRIssa habe ich gesehen. Clarissa

have I

seen.

‘It was Clarissa whom I saw.’ c. Das TElephon klingelt. The telephone rings.

‘The phone is ringing.’ The initial sentence in (2.24a) requires Clarissa to be the topic of the subsequent target sentence. The sentence sounds natural with Clarissa occupying the prefield. In (2.24b), Clarissa is narrowly focused due to the preceding question. Still, the item can occur in the prefield. Finally, (2.24c) shows that items that are neither topic nor narrow focus can also be hosted by the prefield. In the preceding Section 2.1, it was shown that sentences like (2.24c) contain no topic. Being a thetic sentence, the most natural assumption for (2.24c) would be that the whole sentence is in focus and not only the DP das Telephon (the telephone). Hence, this phrase can neither be topic nor narrow focus. However, as has been pointed out by Frey (2004a), there is a position in the German middle field that can only and must be targeted by constituents that are interpreted as aboutness topics: the one directly above the base position of a sentence adverbial. In this respect, German can be regarded as a discourse configurational language. Frey (2004a, p. 157) formulates the following principle: Frey’s Topic Principle In the middle field of the German clause, directly above the base position of sentential adverbials (SADVs), there is a designated position for topics: all topical phrases occurring in the middle field, and only these, occur in this position. Note that only sentence adverbials mark the right edge of the topic position as these adverbials have the highest base position in the middle field. Temporal or locative


33

adverbials do not have this property. Sentence adverbials express the speaker’s estimation of an eventuality (Frey, 2004a, p. 157), such as glücklicherweise (fortunately), anscheinend (apparently), sicherlich (certainly), and wahrscheinlich (probably).12 Frey (2004a) justifies his claim that aboutness topics of the German middle field can be found only in a certain position by discussing several topic tests. He shows that whenever a constituent is classified as topic according to these tests, it has to turn up in the designated middle field position. Consider the following example from (Frey, 2004a, p. 158). (2.25) Ich erzähle dir etwas u¨ ber Maria. (Let me tell you something about Maria.)

a. Nächstes Jahr wird Maria wahrscheinlich nach London gehen. next

year will Mary probably

to

London go

‘Next year Mary will probably go to London.’ b. # Nächstes Jahr wird wahrscheinlich Maria nach London gehen. year will probably

next

Maria to

London go

As discussed above, the context in (2.25) forces Maria to be the topic of the subsequent sentence. (2.25a), where Maria appears in the position directly above the SADV wahrscheinlich (probably), sounds perfect. (2.25b), in which Maria is not in topicposition, is not felicitous, though (2.25b) is a grammatical sentence and would be fully acceptable in a different context. Licit quantifiers in the middle field topic position Under the assumption that Frey’s topic principle is correct, it can be used as a test to determine which quantifiers can be interpreted as topics. In example (2.26), the sentence adverbial interessanterweise (interestingly) marks the position to its left as a topic position.13 (2.26) Während des Vortrags ... during

the talk

...

a. hat ein / ? jeder Student interessanterweise geschlafen. has a

/ every student interestingly

slept

‘some / every student was asleep, interestingly.’ b. hat ∗ kein / ∗ fast jeder Student interessanterweise geschlafen. has no

/ almost every student interestingly

slept

‘no / almost every student was asleep, interestingly.’ c. haben drei / einige / ? die meisten / ? alle Studenten interessanterweise have

three / several / the most

/ all students

interestingly

geschlafen. slept

‘three / several / most / all students were asleep, interestingly.’ 12 SADVs also have focus-inducing uses (see Jacobs, 1986). The SADV is then associated with one narrowly focused constituent. This reading sometimes interferes and should be disregarded. 13 To understand the judgments made below, recall that we have to abstract away from a reading of interessanterweise (interestingly) where it is understood as focus-inducing adverb.

34

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS d. haben ∗ wenige / ∗ höchstens drei / ?? mehr als drei / ?? genau drei / have

few

∗

alle Studenten interessanterweise geschlafen.

fast

/ at-most

almost all students

three /

more than three /

interestingly

exactly three /

slept

‘few / at most three / more than three / exactly three / almost all students were asleep, interestingly.’ e. hat interessanterweise ein / kein / jeder / fast jeder Student has interestingly

a

/ no

/ every / almost every student

geschlafen. slept

‘some / no / every / almost every student was asleep, interestingly.’ f. haben interessanterweise drei / einige / ? wenige / höchstens drei / have

interestingly

three / several / few

/ at-most

mehr als drei / genau drei / die meisten / alle / fast more than three / exactly three / the most

three /

alle Studenten

/ all / almost all students

geschlafen. slept

‘three / several / few / at most three / more than three / exactly three / most / all / almost all students were asleep, interestingly.’ The sentences in (2.26a–d) show that only singular indefinites (ein Student (some student)), bare numeral indefinites (drei Studenten (three students)), and the quantifier einige N are well suited in Frey’s topic position.14 Frey (2004b) claims that they receive a ‘specific’ interpretation when they occupy the designated topic position, which explains why they sound natural when they are followed by an explanatory sentence such as (2.27a,b), respectively. (2.27)

a. Nämlich Peter. namely

Peter

b. Nämlich die drei in der letzten Reihe. namely

the three in the last

row

‘Namely the three in the last row.’ Universal quantifiers such as jeder Student (every student) and alle Studenten (all students) seem a little degraded in the topic middle field position, but not completely ungrammatical. (Reinhart, 1981, p. 12) also points out that universal quantifiers can felicitously appear in topic positions. Her justification for this fact is that universals can be reinterpreted as sets containing all elements of the quantifier’s restrictor and that these sets can in turn be understood referentially. In the following, I will refer to the quantifiers that can turn up in topic positions – i.e. singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites, einige N, and universal quantifiers – as topicable quantifiers. I exclude the GQ die meisten N (most N) from my investigations at this point and I will come back to this quantifier later in Section 6.3.3, when I will discuss the semantics of the different GQs in detail. For the moment, it suffices to note that sentence (2.26c) with die meisten 14 The determiners of these expressions have to carry a strong accent in this position, which can be interpreted as an additional topic-marking device (see Section 2.2.3 below). The question of why this accent is often obligatory will be discussed in Chapter 5.


35

Studenten (most students) occupying Frey’s middle field position sounds quite ok. For German, it could be argued that die meisten Studenten (most students) sounds grammatical in topic position only because the definite article die (the) causes the DP to be syntactically treated like a definite description15 and that it can thus occupy a topic position only due to its definite-like appearance, although, semantically, it is not interpreted as topical. However, we will see below that in Japanese and Korean mostquantifiers allow for topic marking, too. Yet, in these languages, there is no definite article that could license this use in a way comparable to what I suggested here. For the moment, we have to leave this issue unsettled. All other quantifiers are more or less deviant. But whereas monotone increasing quantifiers such as mehr als drei Studenten (more than three students) and non-monotonic quantifiers such as genau drei Studenten (exactly three students) sound just extremely odd in the position above the sentence adverbial, monotone decreasing quantifiers such as wenige Studenten (few students), weniger als drei Studenten (less than three students) or kein Student (no student) in this position result in entirely ungrammatical sentences. The ungrammaticality or oddity of the sentences in (2.26a–d) with the respective subject quantifiers can only be due to the fact that these quantifiers occupy a topic position. As (2.26e,f) show, the corresponding sentences with the same quantifiers in a non-topic position are fully grammatical.16 Apparent counterexamples There are examples that seem to pose problems for the claim that only topical elements can occupy the designated middle field position. If the element that appears before the sentence adverbial receives a contrastive interpretation, all kinds of elements, i.e. also quantifiers that usually cannot be interpreted as sentence topics such as fast alle Katzen (almost all cats), seem to be allowed. (2.29)

a. ...weil

fast

alle KATzen erstaunlicherweise intelligent sind.

because almost all cats

surprisingly

intelligent are

‘...because, surprisingly, almost all cats are intelligent.’ b. Aber PFERde sind in der Regel ziemlich dumm. but

horses

are in the rule

relatively stupid

‘But horses are usually quite stupid.’ Following (Frey, 2005), I assume that the quantificational DP in (2.29a) does not occupy the designated middle field position, but rather one that Frey calls KontrP . To reconstruct his line of argument, let us first go through the assumptions he makes concerning the German prefield. The basic question he raises and convincingly answers is 15 Cf. (Pafel, 2005, pp. 44–45), where meisten of die meisten is analyzed syntactically as an adjective (and semantically as a quantity predicate). 16 Note that wenige Studenten (few students) in subject position of (2.26f) seems somewhat degraded. The grammatical status improves if nur (only) is inserted:

(2.28) Während des Vortrags haben interessanterweise nur wenige Studenten geschlafen. during the talk have interestingly only few students slept ‘During the talk, only few students were asleep, interestingly.’ The reason for this is not clear to me, but I assume that it is independent of the pursued issues.

36


why the German prefield can be filled by all different kinds of constituents. He argues that, generally speaking, it can be filled for two different reasons: 1. To satisfy the EPP (Extended Projection Principle)... • either by Spec-CP base-generated items such as es (it) • or via Formal Movement (FM), which goes back to (Fanselow, 2002) and says that the highest XP in the middle field can be moved to Spec-CP (Minimal link condition). ¯ 2. Due to genuine A-movement, which has the pragmatic effect of contrastive interpretation. It follows that if a (non base-generated) constituent in the prefield does not necessarily receive a contrastive interpretation, it must have been moved there by FM. Frey (2005) assumes that the left periphery in German is structured as in (2.30). (2.30) CP (((hhh C′ (((hhh KontrP (((hhh Kontr ′ (((hhh FinP (((hhh Fin ′ (((hhh TopikP ``` Topik ′ XX X ... P P In this structure the left boundary of the middle field is marked by Fin. Importantly, this position does not host complementizers, which are generated in C (see Frey, 2004c for arguments). In other words, the middle field is not conceived of as beginning right below the position of the complementizer, as is usually assumed. ¯ SpecCP , SpecKontrP , and SpecFinP are A-positions and constitute the C-domain; SpecTopikP constitutes the highest position in the middle field and hosts topics only. There are several conditions that have to hold for this structure. Most importantly for our concerns, complementizers are generated in C. There is only one EPP-feature in the C-domain, and KontrP only hosts phrases with a [+contrastive]-feature. Significantly, Frey (2005) now shows that sometimes elements only seem to occupy the highest middle field position and in fact have to be interpreted as occupying the SpecKontrP -position (for further details see Frey, 2005, pp. 156ff.). These elements then necessarily receive a contrastive interpretation, which distinguishes them from


37

those constituents that actually occupy the highest position in the middle field. (Frey, 2005, p. 156) gives the following example: (2.31)

a. ...weil

ROT Max die Haustür

because red

streichen will.

Max the entrance-door paint

wants

‘because Max wants to paint the door red.’ b. ∗ Max will ROT die Haustür Max wants red

streichen.

the entrance-door paint

In (2.31a), ROT (red) seems to occupy the highest middle field position, because it appears below the complementizer weil (because). However (2.31b) shows that the target item ROT (red) cannot appear in the alleged middle field position, if the prefield is occupied. Frey concludes that in (2.31a) it does not, in fact, occupy a middle field position, though it may appear to, but rather SpecKontrP . (2.31b) then is ungrammatical due to the fact that the target item cannot occupy SpecKontrP here, because there is already one constituent in the prefield (and there is only one EPP-feature to be realized in the C-domain). This now gives us an explanation for the initial example (2.29a). Here too, the quantifier occupies SpecKontrP and not the middle field position, which is reserved for sentence topics. Although fast alle Katzen (almost all cats) is located in a position above the sentence adverbial erstaunlicherweise (surprisingly), it has to be assumed to occupy SpecKontrP and not the topic position in the middle field. This assumption is justified by the fact that (2.29a) has a contrastive flavor and necessarily has to occur in a contrastive context, where fast alle Katzen (almost all the cats) are distinguished from another element such as Pferde (horses) in (2.29b). This means that non-topicable elements that appear in a position above the sentence adverbial are not counterexamples to Frey’s claim that there exists a topic position in the German middle field, as long as these elements necessarily receive a contrastive interpretation. German Left dislocation Syntactic dislocation is usually assumed to be a topic-marking device that labels the disclocated element unambiguously as topical (see among others Reinhart, 1981; Gundel, 1985, 1988; Jacobs, 2001). It has been shown by Frey (2000, 2004b), however, that, at least in German, not all dislocation constructions pattern alike and that not all mark the dislocated element as topic. Frey shows that German left dislocation, as opposed to hanging topic constructions or topicalization (despite the unfortunate names of these constructions), is a topic-marking construction.17 Left dislocation vs. hanging topic It is important to distinguish German left dislocation from hanging topic constructions (see also Altmann, 1981). A left-dislocated phrase is prosodically integrated into the subsequent sentence (see example 2.32a), which distinguishes left dislocation from hanging topic constructions (see example 17 Vallduv´ı (1992)

argues that Catalan left dislocation is also a topic-marking device.

38


2.32b). Frey (2004b, 2005) indicates this by using different arrows, as shown in the following example. (2.32)

a. Die Clarissa → die ist in Bolivien. (Left Dislocation) the Clarissa

RP is in Bolivia

‘Clarissa is in Bolivia.’ b. Die Clarissa ↑ sie/die ist in Bolivien. (Hanging Topic) the Clarissa

she/RP is in Bolivia

‘Clarissa is in Bolivia.’ A second requirement of German left dislocation constructions is that the resumptive pronoun (RP) must be a weak d-pronoun (die in (2.32)), whereas in hanging topic constructions the resumptive pronoun can be a d-pronoun or an ordinary pronoun (sie in (2.32b)). Weak d-pronouns are form-identical with the different appearances of the definite article. Furthermore, in left dislocation constructions, the d-pronoun and the left-dislocated phrase must agree with respect to case. It is usually assumed that the RP must occur in the prefield (see e.g. Vat, 1981), but see (Frey, 2004b) for a different view. In German hanging topic constructions the RP can appear in any position. As pointed out by Vat (1981), left dislocation allows for binding of an element in the left-dislocated phrase by some element of the following sentence (as long as this element c-commands the base position of the resumptive pronoun). Hanging topic constructions, on the other hand, do not allow for binding (see Frey, 2004b, ex. (3), p. 205 for the following example). (2.33)

a. Seineni Doktorvater → den verehrt jeder Linguisti . his

RP admires every linguist

supervisor

‘His supervisor, every linguist admires (him).’ b. ∗ Seineni Doktorvater ↑ jeder Linguisti verehrt ihn/den. his

supervisor

every linguist

admires him/RP

The binding facts now help to differentiate between hanging topic constructions and left dislocation, even if the resumptive pronoun is a weak d-pronoun in the prefield as in (2.34). (2.34)

a. Alexandras Schwester, die hat jeder Alexandra’s sister

zuerst angerufen.

RP has everyone first

rung-up

‘Alexandra’s sister, everyone rang (her) up first.’ b. Seinei Schwester, die hat jederi zuerst angerufen. his

sister

RP has everyone first

rung-up

‘His sister, everyone rang (her) up first.’ While (2.34a) could be a hanging topic or a left dislocation construction, (2.34b) has to be an instance of left dislocation, because seine (his) can be bound by jeder (everyone). It has also been pointed out by Vat (1981) that left dislocation is island sensitive, whereas the hanging topic construction is not. (2.35)

a. ∗ Seinen Doktorvater → ich kenne jeden Linguisten, der den liebt. his

supervisor

I

know every linguist

who RP loves


39

b. Diesen Philosophen ↑ ich kenne jeden Linguisten, der ihn liebt. this

philosopher

I

know every linguist

who him loves

‘This philosopher, I know every linguist who loves him.’ Frey (2005) argues that the left-dislocated element is located in SpecCP and that the resumptive pronoun can occupy another Spec-position in the prefield (SpecFinP or SpecKontrP , see the preceding discussion). According to (Frey, 2004b), the RP first has to be moved to the topic position in the middle field, then it can be moved further to the prefield. The RP may also remain in the middle field, but then it necessarily occupies the designated topic position. (2.36)

a. Seinen Doktorvater → jeder Linguist mag den anscheinend. his

supervisor

every linguist likes RP apparently

‘His supervisor, every linguist likes (him), apparently.’ b. ∗ Seinen Doktorvater → jeder Linguist mag anscheinend den. supervisor

his

every linguist likes apparently

RP

Frey (2004b) concludes that the resumptive pronoun in German left dislocation constructions has to be a topic. Due to the relationship between the RP and the dislocated phrase, the dislocated phrase must also be topical. Hence, German left dislocation unambiguously marks the left-dislocated phrase as topic. This does not hold for German hanging topic constructions, where the RP might also appear in a non-topic marking position (see Frey, 2004b, ex. (21), p. 212). Licit quantifiers in left dislocation constructions Using left dislocation to test the topical status of quantifiers, we get results very similar to the ones observed for the middle field cases.18 (2.37)

a. Ein Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. some horse RP has the bananas eaten

‘Some horse has eaten the bananas.’ b. ∗ Kein / ∗ Jedes / ∗ Fast jedes Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. no

/

every / almost every horse RP has the bananas eaten

‘Some / No / Every /Almost every horse has eaten the bananas.’ c. Drei / Einige / ? Alle / ? Die meisten Pferde, die haben die Bananen three / several / all

/ the most

horses RP have

the bananas

gefressen. eaten

‘Three / Several / Few / All / Most horses have eaten the bananas.’ d. ∗ Wenige / ∗ Höchstens drei / ?? Mehr als drei / ?? Genau drei / few ∗

/ at-most

three /

more than three /

exactly three /

Fast alle Pferde, die haben die Bananen gefressen. almost all horses RP have

the bananas eaten

‘Few / At most three / More than three / Exactly three / Almost all horses have eaten the bananas.’ 18 The fronted DPs in the examples of this section have to be read as prosodically integrated into the subsequent sentence to assure that we are actually dealing with left-dislocation as opposed to a hanging topic construction (cf. the discussion of the last subsection).

40

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS e. Ein / Kein / Jedes / Fast jedes Pferd hat die Bananen gefressen. some / no

/ every / almost every horse has the bananas eaten

‘Some / No / Every / Almost every horse has eaten the bananas.’ f. Drei / Einige / Wenige / Höchstens drei / Mehr als drei / Genau drei three / several / few

/ at-most

three / more than three / exactly three

/ Die meisten / Alle / Fast alle Pferde haben die Bananen gefressen. / the most

/ all

/ almost all horses have

the bananas eaten

‘Three / Several / Few / At most three / More than three / Exactly three / Most / All / Almost all horses have eaten the bananas.’ Although all quantifiers are allowed as subjects of the sentences in (2.37e,f), certain quantifiers are not allowed in left dislocated position. The class of quantifiers that is allowed here is the same as the class of quantifiers that is allowed in the middle field topic position: singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites, einige N,19 and marginally universal quantifiers (only plurals). The GQ jedes Pferd (every horse) is deviant in left dislocated position (cf. example (2.37b)). This can be explained as follows: the topic mechanism that I will propose in Chapter 6 – put in simplified terms – evokes that in the case a quantifier is marked as topical a representative subset of this quantifier is picked out that serves as the address for the context update. In the case of jedes Pferd (every horse), the mechanism yields a set that contains all horses and nothing else, which is a plural object. This object would therefore require a plural resumptive pronoun. Syntactically, however, the (singular) quantifier has to agree with the resumptive pronoun and hence should be resumed by a singular pronoun. Consequently, a plural resumptive pronoun renders the sentence entirely ungrammatical. (2.38) ∗ Jedes Pferd, die haben die Bananen gefressen every horse RP have

the bananas eaten

Although the RP would correctly pick up a plural set introduced by the topic mechanism, this clashes with the syntactic requirements of jedes (every), which requires a singular resumption. As these two constraints are incompatible, singular universal DPs cannot turn up in left dislocation constructions on syntactic grounds. The GQ die meisten Pferde (most horses) is also (marginally) allowed in leftdislocated position. As already mentioned during the discussion of the middle field topics, I have to postpone a discussion of most-GQs until Chapter 6.

Apparent counterexamples We observe the same class of quantifiers both in left dislocation constructions and in Frey’s middle field topic position. But now consider the following examples. (2.39)

a. Verrückt! Gestern hat jeder Linguist seine KATze mit zur crazy

yesterday has every linguist his

cat

gebracht. brought

‘Crazy! Yesterday, every linguist took his cat to the party.’ 19 See

also (Altmann, 1981, p. 21) for an example of a left-dislocated einige -DP.

Party

with to-the party


41

b. Falsch. Seinen HUND → DEN hat jeder wrong his

dog

RP

mitgebracht.

has everyone brought-along

‘Wrong. Everyone took his dog.’ Frey discusses related examples (Frey, 2004a, ex. (24), (25), p. 165) and argues that the left-dislocated element can be focal and topical at the same time. The focal part is responsible for the contrastive flavor. However, it can be observed that such contrastive left-dislocated DPs can also be found with quantifiers that one would not want to regard as topical and that fail the middle field topic test. (2.40)

a. A: Gestern hat jeder Linguist mehr als drei Flaschen BIER zur yesterday has every linguist more than three bottles

beer

to-the

Party mitgebracht. party brought-along

‘Yesterday, every linguist brought more than three bottles of beer to the party.’ b. B: Bier? Mehr als drei (seiner besten) Flaschen WEIN → DIE hat beer

jeder

more than three of-his best

bottles

wine

RP has

mitgebracht.

everyone brought-along

‘Beer? Everyone brought more than three bottles of (his best) wine.’ (2.41)

a. A: Das Aufräumen nach der Party ging doch sicher schnell, weil the cleaning-up after the party went PART surely quickly because

so viele geholfen haben, nicht? so many helped

have

not

‘I guess the cleaning-up after the party went quickly because many people helped you, right?’ b. B: Naja. Fast alle KINder → DIE haben mir tatsächlich geholfen. well

almost all children

RP have

me indeed

helped

(Aber die Erwachsenen die haben nur rumgesessen.) but

the grown-ups

RP have

only sat-around

‘Well, almost all children helped me to clean up indeed. (But the grown-ups only sat around.)’ Intuitively, the modified numeral indefinite mehr als drei (seiner besten) Flaschen Wein (more than three (of his best) bottles of wine) and the strong quantifier fast alle Kinder (almost all children) do not constitute plausible sentence topics, i.e. they are not objects that a sentence can possibly be about. Binding into the DP is possible, which shows that we are dealing with left dislocation and not with a hanging topic construction. The reader might be sceptical about example (2.40b) because the involved DP is a partitive one and partitive constructions are known to behave ‘abnormally’ in many respects. However, when the material in parentheses is omitted – resulting in a version that does not contain a partitive element – the sentence is still grammatical. Note that the prosodical integration (indicated by the arrow →) also indicates that the sentences are left dislocation constructions and not hanging topic constructions.

42


Despite initial appearance, these examples do not constitute an argument for the claim that modified numeral indefinites or strong quantifiers such as fast alle Kinder (almost all children) can serve as aboutness topics. They rather show that not all cases of left dislocation have a topic-marking function. Without the contrastive context, sentences (2.40b) and (2.41b) are just as bad as the relevant sentences in (2.37d), as shown in (2.42). (2.42)

a.

??

Mehr als drei (seiner besten) Flaschen Wein → die hat jeder

more than three of-his best

bottles

wine

RP has everyone

mitgebracht. brought-along

‘Everyone brought more than three bottles of his best wine.’ b. ?? Fast alle Kinder → die haben mir (tatsächlich) geholfen. almost all children

RP have

me (indeed)

helped

‘Almost all children helped me (indeed).’ It is striking that in (2.40) and (2.41) not only the contrastive element, but also the resumptive pronoun receives a heavy accent. This can be explained if it is assumed that, in these cases, the resumptive pronoun has directly moved to SpecKontrP , without having landed in the topic position of the middle field on its way. This is motivated by the contrastive interpretation the sentences obtain. Empirically, this case is distinguishable from the topic case, because the relevant sentences can only be interpreted with a contrastive flavor. In other words, German left dislocation has two different functions: to mark topicality and to mark contrastivity. I conclude – contrary to (Frey, 2004b) – that not all left dislocation constructions necessarily mark the left-dislocated element as topical. Exceptions to this rule are those where the RP is interpreted in SpecKontrP . The resulting sentences can only be interpreted contrastively. But all left dislocation constructions that do not have a contrastive flavor are necessarily topic-marking. That two seemingly very different functions – marking contrastivity and marking topicality – are encoded by one and the same means might seem surprising at first sight. However, without having a deeper insight why this correlation exists, let me point out that it can be found in other places as well. First, it is well known that the Japanese marker wa marks constituents as either topical or contrastive (see Kuroda, 2005 and his earlier work for some speculations about possible sources of the correlation of contrastivity and topicality).20 And second, it will be shown below that also a certain accent pattern in German can indicate either topicality of the accented constituent or a contrastive interpretation. Now we can examine the contrastive quantifiers in the alleged middle field topic position (cf. examples (2.29) from the previous section) from another perspective. There, 20 Note also that according to (Gundel, 1988), who cites (Lambrecht, 1980), French left dislocation receives a contrastive interpretation in standard French, but a ‘neutral’ one in non-standard French. If ‘neutral’ is understood to mean ‘non-contrastive, but topical’, this seems to suggest that the two different functions that left dislocation can have – to mark topicality and to mark contrastivity – have been disassociated such that only one of the functions is now expressed by left dislocation in standard French and the other one by left dislocation in non-standard French.


43

I followed Frey (2005) in the assumption that these quantifiers do not occupy the designated topic position, contrary to how it might appear. An alternative way to look at the data now would be to assume that the designated middle field position can mark aboutness topicality or contrastivity, just as left dislocation serves these two different functions. The topic-marking function of left dislocation Concerning the relationship between a current topic and the preceding text in German, Frey (2004b) observes that a left-dislocated element has to stand in some relation to the previous discourse (see also Frey, 2005, p. 164), i.e. the left-dislocated element denotes a referent already introduced in the discourse or refers to some already established discourse referent. This judgment is in line with (Ward and Prince, 1991), who argue that elements that are dislocated to the left in English have to stand in some (salient partially ordered set) relation to an element of the preceding context. So English and German seem to pattern alike in this respect. (2.43)

a. Meine besten Freundinnen sind alle weggezogen. my

best

friends

are all moved-away

‘My best friends have all moved away.’ b. Die Clarissa, die ist nach Bolivien gegangen. the Clarissa RP is to

Bolivia

gone

‘Clarissa went to Bolivia.’ c. Die Clarissa, sie ist nach Bolivien gegangen. the Clarissa she is to

Bolivia

gone

‘Clarissa went to Bolivia.’ (2.43b,c) are meant to follow (2.43a). While (2.43b), which is a left-dislocation construction, can only be interpreted to mean that Clarissa is one of the speaker’s best friends, in the hanging topic construction (2.43c) it could be the case that a completely new topic is initiated, which would mean that Clarissa is not necessarily interpreted as being one of the speaker’s best friends. (Frey, 2004b) furthermore points out (attributing this observation to Keenan-Ochs and Schieffelin, 1976 and Duranti and Ochs, 1979) that left dislocation is a device that serves to change the current topic of a conversation. He calls this the topic-promoting function of German left dislocation: left dislocation is only an appropriate means if a non-topic acquires the status of a topic.21 This is the reason why some left dislocation constructions sound odd even if the dislocated element is a topic, namely when the left-dislocated element had already been the topic in previous discourse. Hence, not all topics are acceptable in left dislocation constructions. The reverse is a reliable test, though: if a certain constituent is felicitous in a left-dislocated position, it is necessarily the topic of the sentence (except in those cases that necessitate a contrastive interpretation). Hanging topic constructions behave differently again. The dislocated phrase might pick up a phrase that has been the topic of a preceding sentence. 21 Frey (2004b) refers to sentence topics here. He shows that left dislocation constructions are a good means to establish a new sentence topic. On the other hand, they cannot change the discourse topic (see Frey, 2004b, ex. (31), (35) pp. 216–17).

44


English topic-marking constructions According to Gundel (1985), extraposition to the beginning or to the end of a sentence always involves topical DPs (at least if the involved DP does not receive a heavy accent). We have seen that, at least for German, this claim is too strong. Reinhart (1981) agrees that, in English, fronted DPs are topical. In (Gundel, 1988), the author picks out topicalization (also called the double-subject construction) as – in her view – one of the clearest cases of a topic-marking construction. This is in line with (Frey, 2004b), who shows that English topicalization rather than English left dislocation patterns with German left dislocation as far as e.g. binding properties are concerned. In view of this, it would thus be expected that English topicalization serves as a topic-marking device in the same way as German left dislocation does. However, such a conclusion cannot be drawn for English left dislocation without further research. I have to leave the issue unsettled and close this section with the remark that in order to reconstruct the judgments about topical quantifiers in English that were given for German in the preceding section, one has to find a construction that unambiguously marks one of the involved constituents as topical. It would then be predicted that the class of quantifiers allowed in this construction comprises only singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites and potentially universal quantifiers.

2.2.3

Intonational Marking

Topicality can be indicated via intonation, at least in English and German. Given topics are usually deaccented, unless they are read as contrastive topics. Contrastive topics, on the other hand, receive a secondary pitch accent (see e.g. Gundel, 1985, 1988; Hedberg, 1990; Molnár, 1993; Büring, 1997). This accent is usually argued to be a rising one, which I will mark with the arrow ↑.22 (2.44) Was ist denn mit Maria und Oliver los? Warum sind die so schlecht gelaunt? (What’s up with Maria and Oliver? Why are they in such a bad mood?) ↑OLIver ist durch die Prüfung gefallen und ↑MaRIa hat zu wenig Oliver

is through the exam

fallen

and

Maria

has too little

geschlafen. slept

‘Oliver failed the exam and Maria hasn’t had enough sleep.’ In (2.44), Oliver and Maria are clearly topical and given. They receive an accent nevertheless, because the two topics are contrasted with each other. There is furthermore a special brand of sentences that are said to involve contrastive topics too, so called hat contour sentences or bridge accent sentences e.g. discussed 22 As mentioned above, it is unclear whether partial topics really have to be indicated by a rising accent on the determiner of the DPs involved. The same holds for contrastive topics. Furthermore, it is not clear in those cases where the topic is marked by a rising tone, whether this accent has to be just a simple rising tone or a fall-rise tone, as claimed in (Jacobs, 1997) for the first DP of so called ‘hat contour’ structures (see below). Jacobs concedes that intuitions might be additionally blurred, because an (underlying) fall-rise tone can be simplified to yield only a rising tone in the end.


45

by (Büring, 1997; Jacobs, 1997; Krifka, 1998; Büring, 2003). Consider the following well-known example from (Büring, 1997, ex. 2a, p. 175). Again, I mark a rising tone by the arrow; a falling tone is indicated by the backslash.23 (2.45) ↑ALle Politiker sind \NICHT korrupt. all

politicians are

not

corrupt

‘Not all politicians are corrupt.’ Intonation is crucial here. The sentence consists of two primary accents, a rising one on the determiner of the subject DP and a falling one on nicht. It only has one reading, namely a scope inversion reading, where the negation takes scope over the universal quantifier. This is, of course, a very peculiar feature and this fact has hence received a great deal of attention in the literature. However, I will not discuss the scope facts here, because they are irrelevant for my concerns.24 What is important, though, is the fact that these examples are usually regarded as involving a topical constituent. Büring (1997) argues that the determiner of the subject DP (i.e. alle (all)) is topical. In (Jacobs, 1997), the construction is referred to as I-topicalization and contrastive topicalization. I depart from (Büring, 1997) and (Jacobs, 1997) and do not consider the subject determiner nor the entire subject DP in (2.45) to be topical – at least not in the aboutness sense. Büring (1997) has a much broader conception of topicality than the aboutness concept which is usually adopted (as critically noted in Jacobs, 1997, p. 107). For this reason, Büring identifies far more objects as topical than one would usually regard as aboutness topics. Jacobs (1997) however, whose conception of topicality is much closer to the aboutness view, argues that I-topicalization is a topicalization construction precisely because one has the intuition that the underlying utterance made is actually made about the subject quantifier. Yet, he points out that this notion of aboutness topicality is a different one than the one advocated in (Reinhart, 1981), because with I-topicalization, the subject quantifier does not need to represent an address or a link for information storage. In other words, Jacobs argues that the subject quantifier does not need to be ‘referential’. This is evidenced by the fact that (almost) all quantifiers can be involved in ‘contrastive topicalizations’, although we have seen that most of them cannot be marked as aboutness topics in the general case. Hence, there is a clear difference between I-topicalization and other topicalization constructions such as left dislocation (see Jacobs, 1997, pp. 96-99, footnote 28). Most quantifiers are not licensed in ordinary topicalization constructions, while they are perfectly acceptable with I-topicalization. Let me illustrate this last point by way of the following example. (2.46) ↑WEnige / Mehr als ↑DREI / Genau ↑DREI Politiker sind \NICHT few

/ more than three / exactly three politicians are

not

korrupt. corrupt

‘It is not the case that few / more than three / exactly three politicians are corrupt.’ 23 I diverge from the traditional notation here, where usually a rising tone is represented by the slash, and follow the notation in (Pafel, 2005), instead. 24 See (Ludwig, 2006) for a discussion of the different scope-taking possibilities of hat contour sentences with varying subject quantifiers.

46


All subject quantifiers in (2.46) are felicitous with the indicated intonation pattern, i.e. a rising tone on the determiner and a falling one on nicht. Yet, based on our assumptions thus far, all the subject DPs are very unlikely candidates to serve as sentence topics. I conclude that in I-topicalization constructions, the involved quantifiers are not topical in the aboutness sense outlined above (i.e. they do not point to an address for information storage). However, they are undoubtedly contrastive with respect to some other quantifier – the existence of a contrastive element in the context (whether given overtly or covertly) is even considered as a conditio sine qua non for hat contour structures by Jacobs (1997). In other words, what is called a ‘contrastive topic’ in the literature, is just (part of) a contrastive – non-(aboutness) topical – constituent. The specific accent pattern is simply licensed by the contrastive readings the sentences have.25 So far, we have seen an example where the (usually rising) accent indicates a contrastive topic (cf. (2.44)) and one where it simply indicates contrastivity, but not aboutness topicality (cf. (2.46)). There are other examples where the accent actually only marks aboutness topicality and not contrastivity. It simply marks a new topic. This function of the intonation pattern has been pointed out in various places (see Gundel, 1985, 1988; Hedberg, 1990; Molnár, 1993; McNally, 1998). If the DP consists of a determiner and a simple (non-modified) NP-complement, the accent usually falls on the determiner, as in the case of the hat contour structures in (2.46). Consider the following example from German. (2.47) ↑DREI Filme von Hitchcock(, die) kennt jeder. three films of

Hitchcock

(RP) knows everybody

‘Three of Hitchcock’s films everybody knows.’ Drei Filme (three films) is arguably the topic of (2.47). Being an indefinite, it cannot be given and it is hence marked by a (rising) tone on the determiner. Note that this intonational marking can mark topicality on its own or add to the syntactic marking via left dislocation, as indicated in (2.47). Jacobs (1997) distinguishes this kind of construction, which he refers to as I-specification, from the I-topicalization cases in (2.45) and (2.46) by way of several characteristics. First, the accent on the determiner in I-specification constructions can be a rising or a fall-rise tone, but it does not need to be. This is different for I-topicalization constructions, where the accent must be a rising one or a fall-rise. Yet, typically both constructions use a rising tone. In the following German example from (Jacobs, 1997, ex. 31, p. 101), which the author takes to be an example of I-specification, the determiner can bear a falling tone.

25 The accent on the determiner of the subject DP is probably not a simple focus accent, as has been pointed out by (Büring, 1997) and (Jacobs, 1997). This is one of the reasons why these authors treat these constructions as topicalization constructions. Yet these constructions do not involve topical items in the conception of topicality that is adopted in this book.


47

(2.48) Ich glaube, dass man /JUgendlichen vor I

believe that one

teenagers

allem \EInen Roman von Grass

before all

some novel

of

Grass

empfehlen kann(, nämlich “HUNdejahre”). recommend can

namely ‘Hundejahre’

‘I believe, one novel of Grass can be especially recommended to teenagers(, namely ‘Hundejahre’).’ And second, according to Jacobs, I-specification does not evoke alternatives to the quantificational determiner, but rather to the entire DP. Furthermore the I-specified DP can be additionally characterized by a continuing namely-phrase. It is questionable whether any contrast is evoked at all in what Jacobs calls I-specification constructions. Rather the DP under discussion seems to be marked as topical and further specification about this topic is expected – hence the felicity of the namely-continuation. This differentiates the I-specification construction from the I-topicalization cases, which are acceptable only in contrastive contexts. In sum, intonation can serve as a topic-marking device. Just like German left dislocation, a specific intonation pattern, i.e. a strong – usually rising – tone on the determiner of a quantificational DP, can either indicate topicality or contrastivity in German or English.

2.2.4

Morphological Marking

Japanese, Korean, and Hmong Kuno (1972) argues that in Japanese main clauses, the morphological marker wa has two unrelated functions: it either marks the topic (Kuno calls it the theme) of a sentence or it signals that the wa-marked constituent is contrasted with another element.26 (Note that Kuno assumes that in subordinate clauses, thematic wa is replaced by ga, whereas wa in the contrastive sense is retained, but see Kuroda (2005) for a more sophisticated analysis of embedded wa.) We are only interested here in the thematic use of wa. Kuno claims that in this case, the wa-marked expression has to be familiar (in his terms: anaphoric) or generic.27 Accordingly, topicless sentences such as It is raining cannot contain a wa-marked constituent (unless there is some contrastive flair to them). (Kuno, 1972, p. 270) gives the following example. (2.49)

a. ∗ Ame wa hutte imasu. rain T OP falling is

‘(Lit.) Rain is falling.’ 26 In fact, as hinted at above, it is doubtful that these two functions are actually unrelated. In many languages, among them English and German as we have just seen, topical and contrastive elements are marked by the same intonation pattern (a strong accent on the determiner). Furthermore, German left dislocation and Frey’s topic position in the German middle field seem to have an ambiguous role as marking topicality and marking contrastivity. So it seems that there should be a reason for this close connection between contrastiveness and topicality. 27 I will set aside generic readings for the moment and come back to them – yet only very briefly – in Chapter 5.

48

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS b. Ame ga

hutte imasu.

rain N OM falling is

‘It is raining.’ Kuroda (1972, 2005) argues that the function of wa is actually not to mark the involved DP as topical, but to indicate that the underlying sentence involves a categorical judgment, whereas sentences without wa represent thetic judgments. However, Kuroda is referring to topic as a discourse notion and hence argues mostly against the claim that wa-marked items have to be familiar. Whether wa actually marks topics in an aboutness sense or indicates categorical judgments is a subtle question that cannot be investigated here. For the purpose of this book, I will treat the two views alike and take it that Kuroda’s view that wa marks categorical judgments is essentially the same as saying that it marks the (aboutness) topic of a sentence. Note that Korean has a thematic marker similar to the wa-marker in Japanese, namely nun (and its variant un) (see among others Lee, 1987; Hedberg, 1990; Kuroda, 2005; Tomioka, 2007). The same holds for Hmong28 and the marker mas (see Fuller, 1988). Licit quantifiers with thematic topic-markings To my knowledge, there is little discussion in the literature about the possibility of (thematic) wa-marking of quantifiers. Kuno shows that quantificational phrases such as oozei no hito (many people) are ungrammatical when they are wa-marked, unless they can be interpreted contrastively. This is shown in example (2.50) (Kuno, 1972, p. 270). (2.50)

a. ∗ Oozei no hito

wa party ni kimasita.

many of people T OP party to came

b. Oozei no hito

wa party ni kimasita ga, omosiroi hoto wa

many of people T OP party to came

hitori

but interesting people T OP

mo kimasen desita.

one-person even come-not did

‘Many people came to the party, but not a single interesting person.’ Furthermore, one can find a few comments on the possible wa-markings of quantifiers in (Tomioka, 2007). It is shown that thematic wa-marking in Japanese and nun/unmarking in Korean is possible with subete-no gakusee-wa/motun haksayng-un (all students) and hotondo-no gakusee-wa/taypwupwun-uy haksayng-un (most students), respectively.29 We have seen that in English and German, universal quantifiers and DPs with the determiner most can also appear in topic positions. Hence, these findings are compatible with what we have observed so far. The Japanese correspondents of more than three N, less than three N and exactly three N cannot be marked by a thematic wa in Japanese.30 Consider the following data. (2.51)

a.

??

3 -biki -yori ooku -no neko -wa nemutteiru.

3 -C LF -than many -G EN cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘More than three cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ 28 Hmong

is a language spoken by Hmong people e.g. in northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. dareka-wa /nwukwunka-nun (someone) can be used contrastively. See also (Lee, 1987, ex. (2c), p. 4) for an example of a nun -marked most -DP in Korean. 30 I am grateful to Shinichiro Ishihara (p.c.) for providing me with the Japanese data and judgments. 29 Furthermore,

CHAPTER 2. TOPICALITY b.

??

49

3 -biki -izyoo -no neko -wa nemutteiru.

3 -C LF -or.more -G EN cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘Three or more cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ c. ?? 2 -hiki -yori sukunai neko -wa nemutteiru. 2 -C LF -than few

d.

cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘Less than two cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ 2 -hiki -ika -no neko -wa nemutteiru.

??

2 -C LF -or.fewer -G EN cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘Two or less cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ ?? e. Tyoodo 3 -biki -no neko -wa nemutteiru. exactly 3 -C LF -G EN cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘Exactly three cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ The two question marks indicate that the sentences are odd, unless they are interpreted contrastively. In a thematic reading they are infelicitous. The following quantifiers, however, can be felicitously marked by a thematic wa. (2.52)

a. Neko -wa nemutteiru. cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘A cat (T OP) is sleeping.’ b. 3 -biki -no neko -wa nemutteiru. 3 -CLF -G EN cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘Three cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ c. Subete -no neko -wa nemutteiru. all

-G EN cat

-T OP be.sleeping

‘All cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ Again, singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites, and universals are among the topicable quantifiers, which is what we find for English and German, too.31 Finally, (Hedberg, 1990, Chapter 2), citing (Lee, 1987, pp. 18–19) for the Korean example32 given in (2.54a) and (Fuller, 1988, p. 57) for the Hmong example in (2.54b), pointed out that also in Korean and Hmong ‘specific’ indefinites may be morphologically marked as topics.

31 Note

however that I was also told that the Japanese translation of almost all N can be wa -marked without problems, whereas in German and English this quantifier cannot appear in topic positions. I have to leave an investigation of these contradictory findings for future research. (2.53) hotondo subete -no neko -wa nemutteiru almost all -G EN cats -T OP be.sleeping ‘Almost all cats (T OP) are sleeping.’ 32 There are further examples of nun-marked indefinites in (Lee, 1987), e.g. ex. (7) on p. 8. But note that although Lee takes nun to be a topic marker in Korean, the author holds a different view of topicality than I have put forth. In particular, he does not follow Reinhart’s (1981) aboutness view of topicality.

50


a. ∂ ce

ne-ka manna-n salam-un mikuk-e

o-n

ci

yesterday I-N OM met-ATTR person-T OP America-L OC come-ATTR since

sam ny∂ ntφ-s’-nınte

acitkto unc∂ n-il

three year became-PAST-C IRCUM yet

mos ha-n

-te.

driving-ACC not do-N PST QUOT

‘A man I met yesterday (T OP) has been in America for three years, but (he said) he cannot drive yet.’ b. Ib co neeg tuaj tshiab (mas) kuvxav tau ib co pab kuv. one G RP person come new

T OP

I-want get one G RP help me

‘(From) a group of people (who) just arrived (T OP), I want to get some people to help me.’

2.2.5

A Discourse Configurational Language: Hungarian

Szabolcsi (1997b) dubs Hungarian a language that wears its LF on its sleeve. In Hungarian, most sentences containing more than one quantifier are unambiguous, and these quantifiers only receive surface scope. Szabolcsi shows that there are several positions in Hungarian that can host only certain kinds of quantifiers. She argues that the Hungarian pre-verbal field has the following structure (the asterisk indicating the possibility of multiple filling).33

(2.55)

TopP ∗ ( ((hhh QP ∗ ( ((hhh PredOp/Focus P P

For our purposes, there is only one position that is particularly important, namely the Top-position, which can host only topics. It is reported in (Szabolcsi, 1997b, p. 121) that this position can host the following GQs: a legtöbb fiú (most of the boys), valamely fiú/bizonyos fiúk (some boys), bare numeral quantifiers such as hat fiú (six boys), and sok fiú (many boys). However, this position excludes universals (in the singular), monotone decreasing quantifiers such as kevés fiú (few boys) and modified numeral quantifiers such as több mint hat fiú (more than six boys). Note that Beghelli and Stowell (1997) argue that in English also all N (as opposed to every N and each N ) belongs to the class of group denoting quantifiers, which are the ones that can be hosted by the Top-position. Szabolcsi (1997b) does not discuss a plural universal quantifier in Hungarian. However, according to Beáta Gyuris (p.c.), the quantifier az o¨ sszes N (the whole N), which is to a certain extent similar to all N, can appear in Top-position at least marginally. It is obvious that the topic position in Hungarian can basically be targeted by the same quantifiers that we found in topic positions in German and English and that can be wamarked in Japanese. The only difference to what we have seen before is that sok fiú 33 Szabolcsi has different names for what I – following (Wedgwood, 2004) among others – dub Top(ic)P and Q(uantifier )P , namely HRefP and HDistP, respectively.


51

(many boys) can target the topic position, although we have seen that many N cannot be thematically wa-marked in Japanese, but only contrastively. I exclude the quantifier many N from my examination here, because it is known to behave problematically in many respects and an in-depth analysis of it would go beyond the scope of this book.

2.2.6

Alleged Topic Tests

In this section, I will show that some topic tests that have been proposed in the literature do not actually test topicality. Hence, in the following I will outline what I will not treat as a test for topicality as opposed to what has often been claimed. Subjects and sentence initial position It has been proposed every now and then that (grammatical) subjects are topics. Though this is certainly a clear tendency (cf. e.g. Kuno, 1972) and the unmarked case, it is not necessarily so. There are clear cases where a non-subject is the topic of a given sentence. Reinhart (1981, p. 9) cites the following example: (2.56) Kracauer’s book is presumably the most famous ever written on the subject of the cinema. Of course, many more people are familiar with the book’s catchy title than are acquainted with its turgid text. (The Village Voice, Oct. 1, 1979:49) Intuitively, it is quite obvious that the topic of the second sentence is the book (or its title), which is not the grammatical subject of the sentence. The sentence is felt to be about the book, which is also a discourse old entity. Passive constructions, on the other hand, Reinhart (1981) claims, mark their subjects unambiguously as topics under ‘neutral’ intonation. The subject can only be nontopical if it is uttered with a focal accent. In (Reinhart, 2004) this assumption is relativized. There the claim is a negative one. She assumes that in a passive construction, a non-subject can never be the topic. The subject can be the topic, but it is also possible that the bare proposition is topical (which for others would mean that the sentence is topicless). Summing up, grammatical subjects do not have to be topical, not even in passive constructions. Hence, I will not use subjecthood as a topic test. The same holds for the sentence initial position. Many linguists (see e.g. Halliday, 1967; Firbas, 1964; Molnár, 1993) have claimed that topical DPs can only appear in sentence initial position. However, this claim has turned out not to hold in general (see e.g. Gundel, 1985; Hedberg, 1990; Frey, 2004a). Cataphoric pronouns Cataphoric or backward anaphoric pronouns are assumed to relate to topics only (see Reinhart, 2004) or, as Kuno (1972) states it, to discourse old, predictable entities. Though Kuno (1972) formulates his hypothesis in the indicated way, he would presumably subscribe to the view that cataphors only relate to topics. In his work,

52


Kuno himself mentions several exceptions and complications to this hypothesis. Yet, cataphoric constructions are often used as a test for topichood. In this section, I will give reasons why I want to exclude them from my topic testing devices. It is argued that cataphoric pronouns such as the underlined pronouns in (2.57) have to relate to a topic. In the following, I will call this the topical antecedents only assumption. (2.57)

a. Aus Angst um ihren Job hat Anne geschwiegen. out fear

about her

job has Anne remained silent

‘Because she feared to lose her job, Anne remained silent.’ b. Weil sie Angst um ihren Job hatte, hat Anne geschwiegen. because she fear

about her

job had

has Anne remained silent

‘Because she feared to lose her job, Anne remained silent.’ Recall that while Kuno (1972) understands all topics to be familiar entities, Reinhart (1981, 2004) defends the aboutness (only) concept of topicality and argues that also non-familiar items such as indefinites are good representatives of topics. Therefore she also expects (topical) indefinites to be suitable in backward anaphoric constructions and argues that this prediction is actually borne out.34 She bases her claim on corpus studies of (Carden, 1982), which show that in fact most of the cataphoric pronouns in his corpora relate to items that do not meet the familiarity criterion. Frey (2004a) follows Reinhart (1981, 2004) and uses backward anaphoricity to support his claim that middle field topics always occupy the designated topic position. Under the assumption that backward anaphoric pronouns have to relate to a topic it is predicted in Frey’s theory that the ‘antecedent’ (here, it should better be called ‘postcedent’) of the pronoun has to be located in the topic-promoting German middle field position, because – as shown above – all topics in the German middle field have to occupy this position. The prediction is confirmed by the data in (2.58) (cf. related examples in Frey, 2004a, pp. 159–60). (2.58)

a. Aus Angst um ihren Job hat Anne leider out fear

about her

geschwiegen.

job has Anne unfortunately remained silent

‘Because she feared to lose her job, Anne remained silent, unfortunately.’ ∗ Anne geschwiegen. b. Aus Angst um ihren Job hat leider out fear

c. Weil

about her

job has unfortunately Anne remained silent

sie Angst um ihren Job hatte, hat Anne leider

because she fear

about her

job had

has Anne unfortunately

geschwiegen. remained silent

‘Because she feared to lose her job, Anne remained silent, unfortunately.’ 34 (Kuno, 1972, p. 304, footnote 28) also cites one example from (Postal, 1972), where – what he calls – a ‘specific’ indefinite is the antecedent of a backwards anaphor. He claims that this is possible because the indefinite in Postal’s example is ‘specific’ and therefore half anaphoric as he considers it to be ‘speakerreferential’.

CHAPTER 2. TOPICALITY d. ∗ Weil

53

sie Angst um ihren Job hatte, hat leider

because she fear

about her

job had

Anne

has unfortunately Anne


Unfortunately, there are cases of (plural) backward anaphora, where it seems that the antecedent does not have to be located in Frey’s topic position. But this does not question Frey’s assumption of a designated topic position in the German middle field in general, as he gives plenty of other convincing arguments for his claim. It only shows that backwards anaphoricity is not necessarily tied to topicality. The ungrammaticality of (2.58b,d) would thus have to be explained on different grounds (see below). (2.59) Aus Angst um ihre Jobs haben leider out fear

about their jobs have

fast

alle / mehr als 500

unfortunately almost all / more than 500

Angestellte geschwiegen. employees

remained silent

‘Because they feared to lose their jobs, almost everybody / more than 500 employees remained silent, unfortunately.’ Apart from the fact that the antecedents of the cataphoric pronouns are not situated in Frey’s topic position, the quantifiers in (2.59) are very unlikely topics anyway. (Recall that we have observed above that these DPs usually cannot be marked as topical.) One can also find very unlikely candidates for sentence topics in the singular such as keiner (no one) or fast jeder (almost everyone) as cataphoric antecedents. (2.60) Aus Angst um seinen Job hat keiner / fast out fear

about his

jeder

geschwiegen.

job has no one / almost everyone remained silent

‘Because they feared to lose their jobs, no one / almost everyone remained silent.’ Both keiner (no one) and fast jeder (almost everyone), are allowed in the backward anaphoric construction in (2.60).35 To complicate matters even further, these 35 Sentence (2.60) with keiner (no one) in subject position only receives a contrastive interpretation (with a specific contrastive intonation pattern). One would expect the sentence to be followed by an utterance like (2.61).

(2.61) Sondern eigentlich nur aus Bequemlichkeit. but actually only from convenience ‘But actually just out of convenience.’ It seems that this contrastive interpretation suggests itself because it is the only plausible one the sentence can possibly have. This is evidenced by the fact that the contrastive interpretation is not specific to the cataphoric version in (2.60). Also (2.62) only receives the contrastive interpretation indicated above. (2.62) Keiner hat aus Angst um seinen Job geschwiegen. no one has of fear about his job remained silent ‘No one remained silent because he feared to lose his job.’ However, a slight variant of (2.60) also yields a ‘neutral’, non-contrastive interpretation for the sentence: (2.63) Aus Angst um seinen Job hat keiner sich zu reden getraut. out fear about his job has no one himself to talk dared ‘Because they feared to lose their jobs, no one dared to talk.’

54


quantifiers are not licensed in all backwards anaphoric constructions (cf. (2.64) vs. (2.60)). (2.64)

??

Weil

er Angst um seinen Job hatte, hat keiner / fast

because he fear

about his

job had

jeder

has no one / almost everyone


Interestingly, plural quantifiers – also ones that we have observed not to function as topics usually – seem to be ok here. (2.65) Weil

sie Angst um ihre Jobs hatten, haben fast

because they fear

about their jobs had

have

alle Angestellten /

almost all employees

/

mehr als 500 Angestellte geschwiegen. more than 500 employees

remained silent

‘Because they feared to lose their jobs, almost all employees / more than 500 employees remained silent.’ Examples (2.59), (2.60), and (2.65) provide substantial counterevidence to the ‘topical antecedents only’ assumption. And there is yet another argument: cataphoric pronouns appear in answers to wh-questions, which are arguably focal and non-topical. This proves Kuno (1972, pp. 302ff.) wrong, who claims that backwards pronominalization is not possible if the antecedent is new information or the focus. Consider first a counterexample that Kuno (1972, p. 306) gives himself, where a cataphoric pronoun is related to a focused constituent. (2.66)

a. Who killed Mary? b. ? With an accomplice that hei hired, Johni killed Mary. c. ∗ With an accomplice that Johni hired, hei killed Mary.

Kuno judges the cataphoric variant in (b) to be not as bad as the non-cataphoric one in (c) and hypothesizes that exhaustive answers to questions cannot be pronominalized intrasententially, which might be the reason why (2.66c) is ungrammatical. As then there would be no other way to express the circumstances in (2.66), Kuno argues, the (b)-variant is (marginally) licit even though this variant violates the constraint that cataphoric pronouns must relate to topical/non-focal material. However, consider now another example, where Kuno’s line of argument cannot be maintained. First note that the cataphoric pronoun is licensed even though the antecedent is in focus. (2.67)

a. Wen wird Maria zum Mannschaftskapitän ernennen? who will Maria to-the team captain

nominate

‘Who will Maria nominate to be team captain?’ b. Obwohl eri in letzter Zeit so schlecht in Form war, glaube ich, (wird although he in last

time so bad

in form was believe I

(will

es) Peteri (sein). it) Peter (be)

‘Though he has performed so poorly recently, I believe it will be Peter.’


55

The following example shows that, here, the anaphoric variant of (2.67b), given in (2.68), is fully acceptable, which means that Kuno’s argument is not applicable to this example. (2.68) Ich glaube, (es wird) Peteri (sein), obwohl eri in letzter Zeit so schlecht in I

believe (it will) Peter (be)

although he in last

time so bad

in

Form war. form was

‘I believe it will be Peter though he performed so poorly, recently.’ I conclude from all this – contrary to (Kuno, 1972; Frey, 2004a; Reinhart, 2004) – that cataphoric pronouns do not have to relate to topics. This is in line with (Carden, 1982), who doubts that backwards anaphora [...] has any discourse function per se or if at all, it would be a subtle one (see Carden, 1982, p. 386, footnote 2). Whatever this discourse function might be, it could be the reason for the ungrammaticality of examples (2.58b,d). For this reason, I will not make use of backwards anaphoricity as a topic test.

2.3 Conclusion In the first section of this chapter I have outlined my view of topicality, which is similar to Reinhart’s (1981): sentence topics constitute what the sentence under discussion is about. These topics can be familiar items, but need not be. In the second section I have presented different strategies of topic-marking. These strategies I used as a device to investigate which quantifiers can be sentence topics and which ones cannot – the crucial underlying assumption being that only those quantifiers that can be overtly marked as topical can generally serve as topics. One has to be careful when applying these devices as topic tests, because often the same construction marks topicality and contrastivity. Hence, to be sure that topicality is involved, one has to control for contrastivity. After careful consideration, it turned out that only singular indefinites, unmodified numeral indefinites, the quantifier einige N in German, (plural) universals, and sometimes most-DPs can be marked as topical. All other quantifiers, among them modified numeral quantifiers and all monotone decreasing and non-monotonic quantifiers, cannot serve as sentence topics. As mentioned above, I will exclude the GQ many N from further investigations, because the semantics and properties of this quantifier are highly controversial. Consequently, it also behaves inconsistently with respect to topicality. We have seen in Section 2.2.4 that it cannot be marked by the thematic wa marker in Japanese. (If marked by wa, there is only a contrastive interpretation to the sentence.) Yet, according to Szabolcsi (1997b), sok fiú (many boys) can appear in topic position in Hungarian. In German, on the other hand, speakers vary in their judgments about topic-marked many-DPs. The following sentence with the left-dislocated many-DP was accepted by most of my informants (although we cannot entirely exclude that there is some contrastive flavor to the sentence).36 36 But see (Altmann, 1981, p. 21) for an example of a left-dislocated many -DP which he judges as deviant.

56

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS (2.69) Viele Freunde von Peter, die mag ich. many friends

of

Peter RP like I

‘Many friends of Peter, I like.’ What I will concentrate on in the following chapters are the clear cases of topicable quantifiers, i.e. singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites and (plural) universals. I will explain why only these quantifiers are possible sentence topics and show that my treatment of topical quantifiers also naturally accounts for the exceptional wide scope behavior of certain indefinites, which are the topical indefinites.

Chapter 3

Genuine and Apparent Scope Readings Having pointed out my view of topicality, I will now set the stage for the second main topic of this book, which are the exceptional wide scope phenomena. In this chapter, I will discuss the highly controversial term specificity, which will in the end be argued to be a notion that only makes sense in the context of opaque operators. Specific readings hence have to be set apart from wide scope readings in truly transparent contexts. I will furthermore discuss methods which can serve to differentiate between apparent wide scope readings and genuine wide scope readings of indefinites in a systematic way. Furthermore, I will discuss functional readings, which can also be indicative of wide scope readings, as I will show. Due to their co-variation with other quantifiers, they are often misjudged as narrow scope readings. I understand them as constituting apparent narrow scope readings. I will also present methods to differentiate between functional wide scope readings and genuine narrow scope ones.

3.1 Specificity In this section I will discuss different notions of specificity and finally outline my concept of specificity – only for the purpose of showing that the unspecific/specificambiguity, whose treatment is entirely dependent on the correct handling of opacity, is a complex and disputed matter that should be kept apart from discussions about scope in truly transparent contexts. There are many different conceptions of specificity. Some authors take a specific entity to be the entity ‘the speaker has in mind’ or ‘the speaker wants to refer to’ – i.e. the speaker’s referent in the sense of Kripke (1979). Others simply refer to scope interactions and understand a specific entity to be an entity that takes wide scope over some other operator or even widest scope with respect to all involved operators. Farkas C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 3,

57

58


(1994) calls the former type of specificity epistemic specificity and the latter scopal specificity. She notes that the first is a pragmatic notion, whereas the second is a semantic one.

3.1.1

Ioup (1977)

I adopt the general notion of specificity of Ioup (1977), who argues that specificity is completely independent from Donnellan’s referential/atrributive distinction on the one hand and from relative scope interactions with other quantifiers on the other. Ioup argues that specificity has to be understood as dealing solely with Quine’s opaque vs. transparent contexts. It is known that certain verbs evoke opaque contexts, i.e. contexts where two coreferential term phrases cannot be used interchangeably without possibly changing the truth conditions. Attitude verbs such as to believe or the verb to want are examples of these kinds of verbs. Consider the following sentences (cf. examples (1)–(3) from Ioup, 1977, p. 233): (3.1)

a. Clarissa wants to own a horse. b. She will ride it tomorrow. c. She will ride one tomorrow.

(3.1a) can be followed by (3.1b) or (3.1c). The continuation in (3.1b) forces the specific reading of (3.1a), because Clarissa knows one particular horse that she wants to own. The continuation in (3.1c) forces the unspecific reading. In this reading, Clarissa is interested in owning a certain type of object, namely one of the kind horse. In the example above, wants creates an opaque context for the indefinite and is therefore responsible for the ambiguity of (3.1a). It can be seen that only in the specific reading, which is enforced by the continuation in (3.1b), is an accessible discourse referent for the horse established, because only in this case can one refer back to the specific horse via the pronoun it. The ambiguity of (3.1a) could be captured as a scope ambiguity with respect to the verb to want, i.e. the specific reading triggered by the continuation in (3.1b) could be represented as (3.2a) and the unspecific reading triggered by (3.1c) as (3.2b) as was originally proposed by Quine (1956) and Montague (1973).1 (3.2)

a. ∃x[horse(x) ∧ want(clarissa, own(clarissa, x))] b. want(clarissa, ∃x[horse(x) ∧ own(clarissa, x)])

(3.2a) allows for the inference that the object under discussion, namely the specific horse, exists, whereas the unspecific reading does not allow for this inference. However, Ioup (1977) argues that the specific/unspecific distinction cannot always be made on these grounds. She gives the example in (3.3) (her example (6), p. 235), which is ambiguous between a specific and a non-specific reading for the dragon, but in neither reading we can infer that dragons actually exist. (3.3) Alberta believes that a dragon ate her petunias. 1I

only give a very schematic representation in formula (3.2), ignoring e.g. intensionality.

CHAPTER 3. GENUINE AND APPARENT SCOPE READINGS

59

In the specific reading, Alberta believes that there is a particular dragon that ate her petunias, whereas in the unspecific reading she believes that one member of the dragon type ate her flowers. According to Ioup (1977), the decisive difference between the specific and the unspecific reading for (3.3) lies in the fact that in the specific reading, Alberta has a thought about (at least) one specific object, whereas in the unspecific reading she holds a belief with respect to the set of dragons or the generalized quantifier a dragon. But note that in the specific reading, the dragon is specific with respect to Alberta’s belief-world, but need not actually exist. Alberta believes that there is one specific individual that she conceives to be a dragon that ate her petunias. In the unspecific reading, she is ignorant with respect to the question which individual ate her petunias. In fact, there might be no instance of the set of dragons (in Alberta’s world) for which the reported property (= that Alberta believes that it ate the petunias) holds. For every item which Alberta believes to be a dragon, she might not believe that this very dragon ate her petunias, but she might still believe that it was a dragon that did it. In the specific reading, the truth of the sentence depends on a relation holding between Alberta and one particular (but for the speaker possibly unidentifiable) object. We can draw the same distinction in the case of (3.1a). In the specific reading, there is one particular horse, and Clarissa wants to own it. The specific reading therefore describes a relation between an individual and one particular object and the unspecific reading describes a relation between this individual and a set/property (for this view of specificity see also Partee, 1974; Zimmermann, 2006, the former referring to the specific and unspecific readings as referential and non-referential readings, respectively). Zimmermann (1993) goes one step further and analyzes simple transitive non-composed opaque verbs such as to seek as operating directly on properties, which again reflects the view that unspecific readings embody relations to properties.2 The unspecific reading of (3.5a) can thus simply be represented as (3.5b). (3.5)

a. Clarissa is seeking a horse. b. seek (clarissa, horse)

Enç (1991) argues that examples such as (3.3) show that specificity cannot be equated with a wide scope reading of the indefinite with respect to an epistemic/opaque operator, as was suggested for (3.1) and the representation in (3.2) (for a related example and argumentation see Elbourne 2005, Chapter 3.3.1). At first sight it seems as if (3.6) is not the correct representation of the specific reading of (3.3), because it would require 2 Zimmermann’s account is motivated and supported by the fact that de dicto readings for certain quantifiers are missing with a certain class of opaque verbs. This is illustrated in (3.4) (examples (a,b) taken from Zimmermann, 1993, p. 161).

(3.4)

a. b. c. d.

Alain is seeking each comic-book. Alain is trying to find each comic-book. Alain is seeking a comic-book. Alain is trying to find a comic-book.

While (3.4a) lacks a de dicto reading and only supports a de re reading, (3.4b) is ambiguous between the two readings. However, (3.4c,d), where the universal has been replaced by an indefinite, both are ambiguous between a de re and a de dicto reading. This difference can easily be explained in his account, where seek can directly operate on properties. Indefinites do not need to be analyzed as quantifiers, but can be identified with their defining property (cf. Heim, 1982; Kamp and Reyle, 1993), which is not an option for universals. Hence, seek can be applied to a property in (3.4c), but not in (3.4a).

60


that there is a dragon that actually exists. (This is not to say that (3.6) is not a possible reading of (3.3), it simply does not seem to represent the specific reading we are after.) (3.6) ∃x[dragon(x) ∧ believe(alberta, eat petunias(x))] As discussed above, (3.3) has a specific reading that does not force the speaker to believe in the existence of dragons. Enç (1991) concludes that specific readings hence cannot be analyzed as scope phenomena. This objection, however, is not a solid argument against all theories that aim at explaining such specific readings as wide scope readings over opaque operators. It might e.g. be the case that the believe-operator introduces more than one opaque operator and the specific indefinite takes wide scope only over one of them. One can assume the following axiom3 : Axiom 3.1 (Axiom of Belief) believe(x, p) → believe(x, know (x, p)) One could now analyze the specific reading of (3.3) in the following way: (3.7) believe(alberta, ∃x[dragon(x) ∧ know (alberta, eat petunias(x))] This would be a specific reading where the indefinite takes wide scope over an epistemic operator (know). Yet, the indefinite is interpreted in Alberta’s belief -world. Another option to analyze (3.3) in its specific reading would be to give it the representation in (3.6), but to assume that quantification over ‘nonexistent’ objects is possible, as has been argued by various authors (for discussion and references see Parsons, 1980; Moltmann, 1997). In the end, (3.6) might be the correct analysis of the specific reading of (3.3) (possibly under the assumption that non-existent objects can be quantified and predicated over). This might then explain why (3.3) can be followed by (3.8). (3.8) But it is a figment of her imagination. Here, the pronoun it refers back to the (non-existent) dragon. If we allow for existential quantification over non-existent objects, the use of the pronoun is easily explained, because it can simply be (dynamically) bound by the existential quantifier in (3.6) preceding it. Zimmermann (1993) also points out that non-specificity and failure of existence entailments must not be confused. Although the sentence John worships a Greek Goddess does not entail the existence of Greek Goddesses, this does not mean that the sentence has an unspecific reading. There is no ambiguity between a specific and an unspecific reading involved. The sentence only has one reading: the specific one, i.e. that there is one Greek Goddess (which might not exist after all) such that John worships her. For the sake of being concrete, I will assume – and by doing so slightly depart from (Ioup, 1977) – that specific readings can in fact be conceived of as wide scope readings over some involved opaque operator. However, the reader is asked to bear in mind that the derivation of such specific readings will not be a subject that will be discussed further. Any mechanism that understands the involved ambiguity in the presence of opaque operators as one where the indefinite takes wide scope over the opaque operator 3I

thank Peter Staudacher for pointing this out to me.


61

in one of its readings can be adopted. In other words, the concrete treatment of de re, i.e. specific, readings will not be of my concern. I will rather be concerned with the derivation of (exceptional) wide scope in non-opaque contexts, which will be discussed in great detail below. What is important, however, is my basic concept of specificity, which is exactly the one of Ioup (1977) detailed above: an indefinite can be specific or unspecific with respect to an opaque operator; the unspecific reading describes a relation between an individual – e.g. Clarissa in (3.1) – and a property (in this case the property of being a horse). The specific interpretation describes a relation between an individual and an object (a particular horse). Her conception of specificity brings Ioup into disagreement with all approaches in which the specificity ambiguity is related to speakers’ intentions. In such approaches, sentence (3.9) would be argued to be ambiguous between a specific and an unspecific reading for the indefinite a logician – depending on whether the speaker wants to refer to a particular logician he has in mind or whether he wants to refer to the property of being a logician, which is ascribed to some person that might not be known to the speaker in any other way. Farkas (1994) refers to this ambiguity as epistemic (non)specificity. (3.9) Paul talked to a logician. This alleged specificity distinction refers to speaker’s intentions for it is the speaker’s intent in using the phrase and not her knowledge, that distinguishes the two readings (see Ioup, 1977, p. 238). Ioup points out (and attributes this point to Barbara Partee) that this distinction is reminiscent of Donnellan’s attributive/referential distinction for definites. However, (3.9) clearly establishes an accessible discourse referent in both readings, independent of whether the speaker mainly intends to refer to a person he knows as a logician or whether he wants to ascribe a property to some person by using the indefinite. Both ways, the speaker could continue (3.9) by (3.10), where he refers to the logician. (3.10) He was very intelligent. This would mean that unspecific as well as specific indefinites can introduce externally accessible discourse referents and this would be not a criterion to distinguish between specific and unspecific readings. As Ioup considers this an unwanted result, she concludes that the specific/unspecific distinction should be kept strictly apart from the attributive/referential distinction. She argues that the first distinction is a semantic matter, whereas the second one is a pragmatic issue. That this second distinction can only be drawn on pragmatic grounds is also noted in (Farkas, 1994) when discussing epistemic specificity. Whether or not the speaker wants to refer to a certain individual or to an individual’s property plays no role for the truth conditions and has no linguistic consequences, e.g. concerning the introduction of discourse referents. (3.9) is true if there is one logician that has the property λx[talked to(paul , x)] – independently of whether the speaker knows the logician or not or if he intends to refer to a specific object or just to a property of some object. In (3.1a) on the other hand, there is a difference in truth conditions depending on whether the indefinite is interpreted specifically or not. In the specific reading, there must be one particular horse that is such that Clarissa wants to own it, but there might be others that she does not want to own.

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The truth conditions for the non-specific reading are different. The sentence is true if Clarissa wants to own just an arbitrary member of the horse kind. That de dicto (≈ unspecific) and de re (≈ specific) readings are independent of the referential/attributive distinction has also been pointed out by Kripke (1979), who has shown that there is no one-to-one correspondence between attributive uses of definite descriptions and de dicto interpretations on the one hand and referential uses and de re interpretations on the other (see Kripke, 1979, pp. 9–10). In Ioup’s system, we then expect referentially and attributively intended specific indefinites. (3.9) would be an example of an indefinite that can be uttered with an attributive or with a referential intention. The sentence is not ambiguous concerning (non-)specificity. However, Ioup argues that non-specific noun phrases only exist in an attributive reading. Furthermore, Ioup (1977) advises the reader not to confuse specificity with wide scope over other non-opaque operators. In her view, a narrow scope indefinite such as a girl in (3.11) (from Ioup 1977, p. 242, originally Karttunen 1968, p. 6) can well be specific. (3.11) Harvey courts a girl at every convention. Due to the lack of any operator that causes opacity, we would not speak of specificity in the context of sentence (3.11) in our terminology. However, what Ioup points out is that even in the narrow scope reading of the indefinite the speaker can have the girls identified, which would then correspond to a narrow scope (epistemically) specific reading.

3.1.2

Hintikka (1986)

That specific indefinites seem to behave inconsistently concerning their scope behavior has also been observed by Hintikka (1986), who makes a proposal for the semantics of a certain. In the literature, a certain-indefinites had usually been argued to be entities that simply take widest scope over all operators. Hintikka showed that this generalization does not hold (as had also been noted by Fodor and Sag, 1982), as the following example (from Hintikka, 1986, p. 332) illustrates. (3.12) Each husband had forgotten a certain date – his wife’s birthday. The indefinite a certain date clearly has to be interpreted as dependent on the respective value given to each husband. Hence, it does not take plain wide scope, but it does not take ordinary narrow scope either. Hintikka argues that a certain-indefinites are actually interpreted outside of epistemic operators such as believe or know. But this in turn does not mean that they have to take wide scope over all other operators (e.g. quantifiers) that are c-commanded by the epistemic operator under discussion. He furthermore proposes that the involved epistemic operators can be tacit. For (3.12), it can be assumed that the sentence is embedded under I know (that) – represented by4 KI . 4 The fact that an agent A knows ϕ is represented as K (ϕ). This is to mean that ϕ is true in all worlds A that A holds to be possible and that ϕ is true in the actual world. The agent I stands for the speaker.


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According to Hintikka’s assumptions, the indefinite a certain date is interpreted outside of the epistemic operator KI , but does not take scope over other scope-inducing elements such as the quantifier each husband. The following higher-order formula represents this state of affairs (3.13) (see Hintikka, 1986, p. 334). (3.13) ∃f [KI (∀y[husband (y) → forget(y, f (y))])] There is a function f such that the speaker knows for each husband y that y forgot f (y). We will see at a later stage that this formula, which Hintikka takes to correctly represent the truth conditions of (3.12), can be derived without making the non-standard assumption that an operator can be evaluated outside of an (epistemic) operator O without taking scope over other operators which are in the scope of O. An important ingredient for this alternative derivation of the formula in (3.13) will be the assumption of functional elements in natural language, which will be introduced in Section 3.2. Note that Hintikka assumes that the tacit epistemic operator need not be the speaker’s, i.e. the sentence in (3.12) does not have to be assumed to be embedded under I know (that), but could also be assumed to be embedded under e.g. Peter knows (that) (if Peter is salient somehow). Then the implication is that somebody else, but not the speaker, knows who ‘a certain’ person [in our case: what the date, CE] referred to is (Hintikka, 1986, p. 335 based on a different example). A similar idea can already be found in (Fodor and Sag, 1982), where it is argued that a certain-indefinites can be used to indicate that an identification of the relevant individual could be given by the speaker or someone else whose propositional attitudes are being reported. This idea of specificity is related to the concept of relative specificity in (von Heusinger, 2002), where it is argued that specific indefinites have to be specific with respect to someone. According to von Heusinger (2002), the selection of the instance that makes the sentence true depends on the person that specificity is relativized to.5 Summing up, Hintikka’s main ideas are to analyze certain as a specificity marker for indefinites and to interpret a specific indefinite as being evaluated outside the scope of epistemic operators. However, if an indefinite is interpreted outside of an epistemic operator O it does not necessarily take scope over all other operators that appear in the scope of O. The correct readings can be realized by employing functions.

3.1.3

Enç (1991)

The notion of specificity in (Enç, 1991) is rather different from what has been discussed so far. Enç (1991) emphasizes that specificity is to be interpreted independently of relative scope – with respect to other quantifiers as well as opaque or epistemic operators. Her core argument against the claim that specificity has to do with wide scope over epistemic operators as proposed by Hintikka (1986) is made on grounds of an example that is very similar to the example of the dragon in (3.3) above, where 5 Von Heusinger (2002) argues that wide scope indefinites are special instantiations of relative specific indefinites, namely ones which are bound to the speaker. As Ioup (1977) argues for the independence of scope dependencies and specificity, this view is different from Ioup’s view. This position is also different from the one taken in (Hintikka, 1986). Hintikka argues for the existence of functional (= non wide scope) readings which are dependent on the speaker’s and not anybody else’s knowledge (= speaker-specific).

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a wide scope construal does not straightforwardly represent the specific reading. But we have seen above that a wide scope representation might be correct under certain additional assumptions (e.g. that existential quantification over non-existent objects is allowed for). However, Enç (1991) understands this to be a counterargument to Hintikka’s analysis and argues that specific indefinites are better thought of as entities that presuppose the existence of some other entity that they relate to, i.e. that want to be linked to an individual or a set that has already been established in the context. Enç (1991) mainly discusses Turkish data, where it can be argued that a DP that is marked for accusative has to be interpreted as specific and one that is not marked for accusative has to be interpreted as unspecific as shown in the following example (from Enç, 1991, ex. (12)/(13), pp. 3f). (3.14)

a. Ali bir piyano -yu kirialamak istiyor. Ali one piano

-ACC to-rent

wants

‘Ali wants to rent a certain piano.’ b. Ali bir piyano kirialamak istiyor. Ali one piano

to-rent

wants

‘Ali wants to rent a (nonspecific) piano.’ Enç (1991) also observes that the accusative case marker is furthermore responsible for the partitive interpretation of a DP, as is illustrated in the following example in Turkish (from Enç, 1991, ex. (16)–(18), p. 6). (3.15)

a. Odam

-a

birkaç çocuk girdi.

my-room -DAT several child entered

‘Several children entered my room.’ tanıyordum. b. Iki kız -ı two girl -ACC I-knew

‘I knew two (of the) girls.’ c. Iki kız tanıyordum. two girl I-knew

‘I knew two girls.’ The two girls in (3.15b) (where the DP is marked with accusative) relate back to the group of children that has been introduced in (3.15a). The two girls in (3.15c), on the other hand, cannot be interpreted as a subgroup of the children who entered the room. Hence, (3.15c) following (3.15a) would seem rather incoherent, because there is no intuitive link between the two sentences. These data suggest that specificity is somehow linked to partitivity. A specific indefinite is interpreted as a partitive DP – partitive with respect to a set introduced beforehand. Enç now argues that all specific DPs have the property that they are linked to another DP that has already been established in the context. A definite DP DP 2 (which counts as specific in her approach) picks up an entity that is already known to the hearer (= that of another DP DP 1 ), i.e. the link is established via identifying DP 1 as DP 2 . All strong determiners (which are also specific in Enç’s terminology) pick up an already established set in their restrictor. The DP every man would refer to a set of men already introduced in the context. And finally, partitive indefinites, which denote a subset or an


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element of some other set that has been talked about beforehand, constitute examples of specific indefinites. In the case of a certain-indefinites, which Enç also counts as specific indefinites, matters are slightly more complicated. It is quite clear that these kinds of indefinites do not always refer to objects that are subsets or elements of some other set that is known to the hearer. Consider example (3.16) (from Enç, 1991, ex. (64), p. 20). (3.16) Every man wanted to dance to a certain song that he loved as a teenager. Quite clearly, a song that he loved as a teenager does not necessarily denote an element or a subset of some previously mentioned set. There is a dependent reading here that for every man there is a specific song that he had loved when he was a teenager, and it is this song that he wanted to dance to. Enç takes it that in this case the link to previous discourse is established via a function, which assigns novel objects (the songs) to familiar objects (the men). This means that also in this case there is some linking relation to objects already introduced in the context. Enç’s view of specificity differs strongly from other conceptions of specificity. While it is usually argued that specificity is closely connected to the notion of opacity, in Enç’s view it is simply familiarity that plays the key role for defining specificity, i.e. a specific entity must be known to the hearer in certain respects. Possibly, the subjects of Enç’s investigations (i.e. partitive indefinites) have more in common with topical indefinites than with specific indefinites in the general understanding of the term. This will be discussed in Section 5.3, where the scope behavior of partial topics will be investigated.

3.1.4

Consequences

My concept of specificity is that of (Ioup, 1977) as discussed above. Simple indefinites such as a logician can be understood specifically or non-specifically. Specificity is understood with respect to an opaque (not necessarily epistemic) operator. It addresses the question of whether the sentence predicate holds true of a particular individual or whether it describes a relation to some property. For the sake of concreteness, I assume that a specific indefinite takes wide scope over at least one opaque operator. (If the existence of functional items is taken into account, this conception does not contradict the view that there can be dependent readings of specific indefinites as exemplified by example (3.12).) For the purpose of this book, the exact mechanism that derives these specific readings is however irrelevant. I assume that indefinites marked by German bestimmt are necessarily specific under this view of specificity (i.e. they have to be interpreted with wide scope over an opaque operator). I also tentatively want to assume that the same holds for English certain. This notion of specificity is essentially the one of Hintikka (1986) – the only difference being that Hintikka argues that a certain-indefinites take wide scope only over a (possibly tacit) epistemic operator, whereas I assume that bestimmt-indefinites in German have to take scope over any opaque operator whatsoever.

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Let me point to some important data at this stage. Although specificity in the sense explicated above is a strictly semantic notion and independent of discussions about what the speaker – or someone else – has in mind, the latter notion could be conceived of as a special case of the former, namely when the embedding operator is an epistemic one. Whenever there is no overt opacity-inducing operator, it can be assumed, following Hintikka, that the sentence is embedded under an epistemic operator such as I know that, I believe that, I have heard (from xyz) that. This might be the reason why specificity is often understood in a pragmatic way as the entity the speaker (or someone) has in mind – especially in the case of sentences lacking an overt opacity-inducing operator. Let me illustrate this point by referring back to (3.9). It could be assumed that this sentence is in fact interpreted in one of the ways given in (3.17). (3.17)

a. I know that Paul talked to a logician. b. I believe that Paul talked to a logician. c. I heard from Maria that Paul talked to a logician.

Under this assumption, the original example (3.9) is ambiguous between a specific and a non-specific reading due to the epistemic operators know, believe, and I heard from Maria ≈ Maria believes and told me. In the case of (3.17a,b), the specific reading would be similar to one where a logician denotes an individual the speaker has in mind. In (3.17c) it would denote an individual that Maria has in mind. Epistemic/pragmatic specificity would then be just an instance of semantic specificity under certain circumstances, namely when specificity holds with respect to some overt or covert epistemic operator. There is more to be said on the nature of epistemic specificity, its relation to the semantic view and the consequences that follow from these two diverging notions. I will elaborate on these matters when discussing different approaches that rely on speaker’s reference in Section 4.4. The assumption that bestimmt-indefinites have to be read specifically with respect to opaque operators also accounts for the fact that only sometimes do they seem to necessitate a widest scope interpretation, whereas at other times they do not. (3.18)

a. Komischerweise ist jeder französische Diplomat in eine bestimmte oddly

is every French

diplomat in a

certain

Stadt in Malaysia gezogen. city

in Malaysia moved

Oddly enough, every French diplomat moved to a certain city in Malaysia. b. Komischerweise wollte jeder fanzösische Diplomat in eine bestimmte oddly

wanted every French

diplomat in a

certain

Stadt in Malaysia ziehen. city

in Malaysia move

Oddly enough, every French diplomat wanted to move to a certain city in Malaysia. While (3.18a) can only mean that there is one city in Malaysia (whose name the speaker might have forgotten, which is why she does not present the city’s name) to which all the French diplomats moved, (3.18b) – additionally to a non-variation reading where all diplomats wanted to move to one and the same city in Malaysia – has a reading where the cities can vary with the values for the diplomats. In other words,


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(3.18b) is ambiguous, whereas (3.18a) only has one reading, namely a non-variation reading. This is easily explained. The specific indefinite eine bestimmte Stadt (a certain city) needs to take wide scope over an opaque operator. In (3.18b), there is an overt one (wanted ). If the indefinite takes scope over it, it may still take narrow scope with respect to the universal. In the case of (3.18a), there is no overt opaque operator, and the presence of a covert epistemic operator such as I heard /I believe has to be assumed. If the indefinite takes scope over this operator, it inevitably also takes scope over the subject quantifier. Although (3.18b) contains an overt opaque operator, the possibility of interpreting the sentence as containing a tacit epistemic operator is not ruled out either. This is how the wide scope interpretation for the indefinite comes about. Examples along these lines will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. However, it has been pointed out by Hintikka (1986) that there are indeed sentences where no overt epistemic (or opaque) operator is present and yet the sentences seem to support a non-wide scope reading for the specific indefinite involved. This also holds for the German translations of these sentences. We have already encountered one such example, namely example (3.12). Consider its German translation. (3.19) Jeder Ehemann hat schonmal ein bestimmtes Datum vergessen – den every husband

has once

a

certain

date

forgotten

the

Geburtstag seiner Frau. birthday

of his wife

Each husband had forgotten a certain date – his wife’s birthday. Another relevant example is given below (see Hintikka, 1986, ex. (23), p. 334). (3.20)

a. b. c. d.

Every true Englishman adores a certain woman. The Queen. His mother. Jeder echte Engländer bewundert eine bestimmte Frau. every true

Englishman adores

a

certain

woman

e. Die Queen. the Queen

f. Seine Mutter. his

mother

(3.12), (3.19) and (3.20a,d) not only support a widest scope reading for the indefinite, but also seem to support a narrow scope reading, as the felicitous continuations in (3.20c,f) indicate. At first sight, this seems to contradict the predictions made by the account of specificity outlined above. The certain/bestimmt-indefinites in (3.12), (3.19), (3.20a,d) need to take scope over an opaque operator. As there is no overt one, it has to be assumed that the indefinite takes scope over a tacit epistemic one. But then, it would have to take scope over the universal subject quantifier, also. However, the values for the women can obviously vary with the men. It will be shown at length in section 3.3.2 that the readings indicated in (3.12)/(3.19) and exemplified by the continuations in (3.20c,f) are, in fact, not narrow scope readings, but functional wide scope readings, which can be differentiated from the narrow scope readings on empirical and theoretical grounds. (3.19) and (3.20d) hence do not constitute counterexamples to the treatment of bestimmt-indefinites that has been advocated in this section.

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Consider furthermore the following examples, which have been brought up by Farkas (2002). Farkas argues that a certain-indefinites may be interpreted within the scope of intensional predicates such as dream, believe, and think due to an identifiabilityconstraint (for details see Farkas, 2002), but not within the scope of conditionals or want. (3.21)

a. If Ben solves a certain problem from this list Mr. Koens will praise him. b. I dreamt I had to catch a certain unicorn. c. Poor delusional Mary! She wants to catch a certain unicorn (she thinks has been ravaging her garden).

Arguably, (3.21a) only allows for a wide scope reading of the indefinite, whereas (3.21b) and (3.21c) allow for readings where the indefinite is interpreted in the scope of an opaque operator (dream and think, respectively). (3.21b) can mean that the speaker believes that unicorns exist and that she dreamt that she had to catch one particular one of these unicorns, or it can mean that she dreamt that she had to catch some particular unicorn (but only in her dream-worlds does she believe in the existence of unicorns). (3.21c) also has a reading where there is one particular unicorn of whom Mary believes that it exists and she wants to catch it. Hence, (3.21b,c) allow for readings where the indefinite can be interpreted inside the scope of the involved opaque operators, and (3.21a) only has a reading with the indefinite interpreted outside of the scope of the if -clause. Exactly the same readings seem to be present for the German translations of (3.21a-c). (3.22)

a. Wenn Ben ein bestimmtes Problem von dieser Liste löst, wird Herr if

Ben a

certain

problem from this

list

solves will Mr.

Koens ihn loben. Koens him praise

If Ben solves a certain problem from this list Mr. Koens will praise him. ein bestimmtes Einhorn fangen. b. Ich träumte, ich müsste I

dreamt

I

would have to a

certain

unicorn catch

I dreamt I had to catch a certain unicorn. c. Arme verwirrte Maria! Sie will ein bestimmtes Einhorn fangen poor delusional Mary

she wants a

(, von dem sie glaubt, es habe of

certain

unicorn catch

ihren Garten verwüstet).

whom she thinks it would have her

garden ravaged

Poor delusional Mary! She wants to catch a certain unicorn (she thinks has been ravaging her garden). At least for the German examples it can be shown that the observed differences can also be explained if one takes into account whether one or more than one opaque operator is involved. In the case of (3.22c), the indefinite can take scope over want and below a tacit epistemic operator such as Mary believes that, which would yield the desired reading where only Mary believes in unicorns. In (3.22b), there are two overt operators, namely müsste (would have to) and träumte (dreamt), which evoke two different readings. And finally, in the case of (3.22a), there is only one overt


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operator (the if -clause). The specific indefinite has to take scope over it and thus takes wide scope. Even if we assume that this sentence also introduces an epistemic operator, this operator would take scope over the entire sentence. Hence, if the specific indefinite takes wide scope over it, it would also take wide scope over the if -clause. The sentence thus only supports one reading. The following example gives further evidence that the very simple empirical generalization that bestimmt-indefinites have to take scope over at least one opaque operator is on the right track. In the following German example, the bestimmt-indefinite takes narrow scope with respect to the if -clause, because there is another opaque operator over which the indefinite takes scope. (3.23)

a. Wenn Maria ein bestimmtes Pferd reiten will, redet sie solange auf if

Maria a

certain

horse ride

want talks she so long on

den Besitzer ein, bis er es ihr erlaubt. the owner

in

until he it her allows

If Maria wants to ride a certain horse, she will endeavor to persuade the owner to allow it. b. Wenn Maria sich eine bestimmte Telephonnummer merken muss, if

Maria herself a

certain

telephone number memorize must

versucht sie, die Zahlen irgendwie mit Bildern zu verbinden. tries

she the numbers somehow with pictures to link

If Maria has to memorize a certain telephone number, she tries to link the digits to pictures in her mind. In (3.23), the indefinites can clearly be interpreted within the scope of the if -clauses. This stands in sharp contrast to (3.22a), where the indefinite can only take wide scope over the if -clause. The difference lies in the fact that in (3.23), the indefinite can be interpreted as specific with respect to will (want) or muss (has to), whereas no other opaque operator is involved in (3.22a). In subsequent chapters, we will encounter more data that support this treatment of bestimmt-indefinites as taking scope over at least one opaque operator. Furthermore, it can be verified that they behave rather differently from other kinds of indefinites, which is due to the fact that only bestimmt-indefinites are necessarily marked as specific.

3.2 Wide Scope In the preceding section, we have seen that specific readings are induced by particular operators that evoke opacity. We have seen that – except for some complicating cases, i.e. specific indefinites in the context of a believe-operator – specific readings can be conceived of as cases where the involved indefinite takes wide scope over the involved opaque operator. In the literature, there are various proposals about how to properly deal with opacity. Hence, the exact formulation of what it means for a specific indefinite to take ‘wide scope’ depends on the approach taken. In the following, I will keep agnostic about the exact mechanism that derives specific readings. In this

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section, I will discuss scope interactions of indefinites (and quantifiers in general) with operators other than opaque ones. I want to keep these two cases – specificity and wide scope in truly transparent contexts – apart, because wide scope in transparent contexts and wide scope in opaque contexts are presumably not derived through the same kind of mechanism. I will refer to wide scope readings only in the context of quantifiers or other non-opaque operators and refer to the notion of specificity only in the context of opaque operators. Consider the following example. (3.24a) is ambiguous between a reading that corresponds to the c-command relations of the quantifiers at the surface and one where the embedded quantifier takes scope over the quantifier that c-commands it. (3.24)

a. Every student has read some book that Anne recommended. b. 1. ∀x[student(x) → ∃y[recom book (anne, y) ∧ read(x, y)]] 2. ∃y[recom book (anne, y) ∧ ∀x[student(x) → read(x, y)]]

This means that the indefinite can undergo so-called scope inversion and take wide scope over an operator that c-commands it at the surface. The two readings are given in (3.24b). I will refer to reading (3.24b.1) as the narrow scope reading and to (3.24b.2) as the wide scope reading of the indefinite, whenever I presume that a scope mechanism brings about the two readings under discussion. We will see that there are other ways to derive readings very similar to the ones given in (3.24b). When I want to stay neutral with respect to the involved interpretation mechanism or when it is debatable whether the readings under discussion are a matter of scope, I will use the unbiased terms covariation reading for (3.24b.1) (because the value of the indefinite co-varies with the values for the students) and non-variation reading for (3.24b.2). One way to derive the scope inversion reading is by assuming that a syntactic scope mechanism such as Quantifier Raising (QR) (cf. May, 1977) is involved. A quantifier Q2 that is c-commanded by a quantifier Q1 at the surface can be moved to a higher position, such that Q2 c-commands Q1 after the movement operation has applied. It is generally assumed that such a movement operation takes place at the level of logical form (LF) and that this logical form is interpreted by the semantics component. C-command relations at LF correspond to scope relations in semantics. As this movement operation is a syntactic mechanism, it is expected to obey syntactic rules, i.e. in particular it would not be expected that a quantifier can be moved out of a syntactic island, just like it is impossible for a phrase embedded in a syntactic island to overtly move to a position outside of this island (cf. Ross, 1967).

3.2.1

Apparent Wide Scope

Some sentences seem to support a wide scope reading of an indefinite, although this wide ‘scope’ reading is actually only apparent. We already encountered one source of apparent wide scope, namely specificity. Specific readings are often analyzed as involving wide scope over an opaque operator in the semantic structure. But this is not the only option to analyze them, as has been shown in the preceding section.


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Furthermore, specific indefinites are usually realized differently from indefinites taking genuine wide scope concerning e.g. intonation, as we will see below. In any case, specific readings are substantially different from wide scope readings in truly transparent contexts and therefore I take specificity to be a case of apparent wide scope as opposed to genuine wide scope derived by a scope-shifting mechanism in transparent contexts. Apart from specificity, there are three major sources for apparent wide scope: the alleged wide scope reading is just a special case of the narrow scope reading and thus not a genuine reading in itself; the alleged wide scope reading is in fact a referential reading; or the domain of the indefinite is implicitly restricted by context to a singleton set such that the wide scope reading is in fact indistinguishable from the narrow scope one.

No genuine reading It has been known for many years that certain apparent scope ambiguities are, in fact, not ambiguities. Rather they express some kind of underspecification (for a historic overview of the development in the literature, see Ruys, 1992; Reinhart, 1997). Consider the following example. (3.25) At the party, everybody danced with a woman. Sentence (3.25) seems ambiguous between a narrow scope reading for the indefinite a woman, where the women co-vary with the people, and a wide scope reading, where only one woman is involved. In the former reading, the sentence is true in a situation where everybody danced with a (possibly) different woman. The wide scope reading is stronger and forces that everybody danced with the same woman. However, in this case, the wide scope reading is just a special case of the co-variation one. Whenever one can find a model that makes the wide scope reading true, the same model also verifies the co-variation reading. This, one could argue, shows that the sentence is not ambiguous, because the alleged wide scope reading is in fact not a genuine reading, but implies the narrow scope one. However, it is commonly known that not all wide scope readings can be explained away as special cases of narrow scope ones (see e.g. Ruys, 1992). Consider (3.26), a variant of (3.25), where the universal quantifier is replaced by a non-monotonic one. (3.26) At the party, exactly ten people danced with a woman. (3.26) also seems ambiguous between a wide scope and a narrow scope reading. This time, neither reading implies the other one. The narrow scope reading does not imply the wide scope one: if exactly ten people danced with a (possibly) different woman, it certainly does not necessarily hold that there is one woman such that exactly ten people danced with her. Also, if the wide scope reading is true, it does not follow that also the narrow scope reading holds: if there is one woman for whom it holds that exactly ten people danced with her, there might well be other women such that other men danced with them. Examples such as (3.26) show that scope ambiguity is a real phenomenon and not just an illusion, because non-variation readings cannot always be argued to be a subspecies of co-variation ones.

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Speaker’s reference There is another source for apparent wide scope readings that in fact are not scope readings: the indefinite might be read referentially. Fodor and Sag (1982) argue that indefinites are (lexically) ambiguous between a referential and a quantificational reading. In the referential reading, an indefinite denotes one specific entity. Its interpretation is the same as for a referential term such as Peter. This approach will be discussed in greater detail in Section 4.4.1. Let me just point out here that under its referential reading, an indefinite can appear to take wide scope as it is scopeless like any other referential item. Kratzer (1998) dubbed this phenomenon pseudoscope. If in example (3.26), the indefinite a woman denoted a particular woman, say Maria, the sentence would receive the interpretation that there is one particular woman, i.e. Maria, such that exactly ten people danced with her. The wide scope reading is true whenever this referential reading is true. However, no scope inversion would be involved. This conception is closely connected to the epistemic view of specific indefinites introduced in Section 3.1. Pseudo-wide scope has to do with the speaker’s intention to point to an individual he has in mind. The indefinite then points to the speaker’s referent in the sense of Kripke (1979). In his work, Kripke argues that it is a general feature of language that certain items – he mainly discusses names and definite descriptions – can be used as a semantic referent or as a speaker’s referent. The semantic referent of a designator d is understood as the referent that is assigned to d in the speaker’s idiolect in the general case. The speaker’s referent is the object the speaker wants to talk about in a concrete situation. In certain – what he calls – complex cases, semantic and speaker’s reference diverge. Let us assume that Franz and Ferdinand are two different persons. By the name ‘Franz’, the speaker usually refers to Franz, i.e. the object franz and by the name ‘Ferdinand’, he refers to Ferdinand, i.e. ferdinand . Now, take the situation in which Franz is waving to the speaker from some distance, and the speaker sees that someone is waving, but mistakes Franz for Ferdinand.6 He might then utter (3.27). (3.27) Ferdinand is waving. The semantic referent of Ferdinand in this utterance would be ferdinand , because the speaker usually refers to ferdinand via the name ‘Ferdinand’, but the speaker’s referent now is franz , because the speaker means to refer to the person who is waving, which is franz in this concrete situation. Whether or not sentence (3.27) has to be regarded as true when uttered in the speaker’s reference sense is not under discussion at this stage, but will become relevant later. In anticipation of the discussion in Section 4.4, the sentence appears false in a situation in which Franz, the person the speaker actually sees, is waving, but the semantic referent ferdinand of the utterance is not (even if the speaker means to refer to franz by his utterance). Kripke subscribes to this view, although he writes that he is unsure about the importance of his own intuitions. Examples similar to (3.27) can be found for diverging uses of definite descriptions. In these cases, the speaker’s reference reading would correspond to Donnellan’s referential uses of definites and the semantic reference reading would correspond to the 6 This

example is a modified version of an example by Kripke (1979).


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attributive uses. However, Kripke emphasizes that the possibility of differentiating between speaker’s referent and semantic referent is not a property that is peculiar to definites. Quite to the contrary, Kripke argues that speaker’s and semantic reference are pragmatic notions (of language use) and that an ambiguity between the two uses is therefore a phenomenon that is expected to arise generally, i.e. in the case of all possibly referring expressions and in all languages. The notion of speaker’s reference then is applicable at least to names (as could be seen in the above example), definites, and also indefinites (see Kripke, 1979, footnote 40). An indefinite such as a woman in (3.26) could then be used to refer to the speaker’s referent (i.e. the individual the speaker has in mind) or it could be used as a non-referring expression. In the second case, a woman receives its ordinary quantifier interpretation. In the first case however, it can be argued that sentence (3.26) receives an apparent wide scope ‘reading’, because a woman refers to one specific woman and hence the value of a woman does not vary with the people. According to Kripke (see also Ludlow and Neale, 1991), this would however be no genuine semantic reading of the sentence, but only a different usage of the indefinite a woman. I will come back to this point in Section 4.4, where I will also discuss the intuitive truth conditions of sentences containing indefinites used to refer to speakers’ referents.

Implicit domain restriction A further possible source for apparent, but not genuine wide scope could be implicit domain restriction. It is known that natural language makes extensive use of covert implicit domain restriction that is triggered by context (see e.g. von Fintel, 1994; Stanley, 2000; Mart´ı, 2003). For individual quantifiers, this restriction can be imposed by intersecting the restrictor set with the denotation of a covert predicate that is determined by the context. In a context as given in (3.28a), (3.28b) would not be about all apples in the universe, but about all the apples that have been introduced in (3.28a), i.e. all apples that Peter had bought the day before. (3.28)

a. Yesterday, Peter bought apples. b. Every apple tasted awful.

Portner and Yabushita (2001), Schwarzschild (2002) and Breheny (2003) propose that it is in fact this domain restriction that is responsible for apparent wide scope. Consider again examples (3.25) and (3.26). In both cases, the indefinite’s restrictor woman could be assumed to be covertly restricted to contain only one woman, namely the woman that the speaker has in mind and which satisfies the sentence predicate (= that everybody/exactly ten people danced with her). I will refer to this case, where the restrictor set is restricted in such an extensive way, as extreme domain restriction. The indefinite could then be interpreted as a narrow-scope indefinite. But due to the domain restriction to a singleton set, there is always one and the same woman picked out of the set. This reading would be a reading where the respective woman does not vary with the people, which makes it appear like a wide scope reading. It would be hard to tell between the singleton set-hypothesis and genuine wide scope in this case. Both assumptions could account for the data under discussion.

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This implicit domain restriction can be conceived of as an instance of epistemic/pragmatic specificity, because the speaker has restricted the NP-domain such that it comprises only one individual. Hence the speaker has a specific individual in mind (or a specific property that can be assigned to one individual) that fulfills the sentence predicate. I will discuss the approaches that rely on this assumption and their empirical and theoretical consequences in Section 4.5.

3.2.2

Apparent vs. Genuine Wide Scope

Now that we have seen three options that could account for seemingly wide scope readings without invoking a scope mechanism, I will illustrate that there are examples that show that wide scope readings actually do exist and have to be accounted for by a scope-shifting mechanism. Genuine wide scope exists: the general line of argument My argument will proceed as follows: I will start with examples that only allow for covariation readings, i.e. sentences where a wide scope reading and also all readings that give rise to apparent wide scope readings are excluded. I will then show that a minimal variant, which only differs from the original version in the accent pattern of the indefinite involved, allows for a non-variation reading. It is implausible to assume that variation of the accent pattern influences the availability of specific/referential/extremely domain-restricted readings. The only option that explains that the second variant, as opposed to the first, allows for a non-variation reading is to assume that in the second version the indefinite takes genuine wide scope. Before getting to the heart of this argument, let me illustrate the general point by way of a short example. It has been noted every now and then (see e.g. Fodor and Sag, 1982; Geurts, 2002; Pafel, 2005) that simple indefinites in German and English usually do not allow for ‘specific’ readings, i.e. non-variation readings in my unbiased terminology. But the heavier the DP, the more easily can it be interpreted as ‘specific’. The following example illustrates this fact.7 (3.29)

a. Keiner meiner Freunde hat einen MatheMAtiker zu seiner Party none

of-my friends

has a

mathematician

to his

party

eingeladen. invited

‘None of my friends invited a mathematician to his party.’ b. Keiner meiner Freunde hat einen rothaarigen MatheMAtiker zu seiner none

of-my friends

has a

redheaded

mathematician

to his

Party eingeladen. party invited 7 In the following German examples, I mark the main accent inside the relevant indefinites by capitals in the German variants. Main accent on the NP-complement is the ‘neutral’ stress pattern for a German DP. I will concentrate only on the relevant DPs and omit all other nuclear and pre-nuclear accents. As before, the arrow (↑) indicates that the involved accent is most naturally realized as a rising tone. Accents that have no preference for a realization as a rising tone are indicated by simple capitals (without the arrow).


75

‘None of my friends invited a redheaded mathematician to his party.’ c. Keiner meiner Freunde hat einen rothaarigen MatheMAtiker, den ich none

of-my friends

has a

redheaded

mathematician

who I

aus HEIdelberg kenne, zu seiner Party eingeladen. from Heidelberg

know

to his

party invited

‘None of my friends invited a redheaded mathematician whom I know from Heidelberg to his party.’ (3.29a) only receives a co-variation reading.8 (3.29b) marginally allows for a nonvariation reading, but certainly more readily than (3.29a). (3.29c) finally, where the indefinite is extremely heavy, almost only allows for a non-variation reading. In this case, it is extremely plausible to assume that the non-variation readings do not come about as genuine scope effects, but by way of a non-scope mechanism such as extreme domain restriction or speaker’s reference that evokes the illusion of a wide scope reading. That the heaviness of the NP-complement matters for specificity/referentiality is not surprising, because here the speaker uses an indefinite to refer to a specific object he has in mind. The more information he gives about this object, the easier it is for the hearer to conclude that the speaker is talking about some particular object. The data in (3.29) are thus entirely expected. What is rather unexpected, however, is the fact that a minimal variant of (3.29a) (which we had observed to only allow for a co-variation reading) supports the non-variation reading. (3.30) Keiner meiner Freunde hat ↑EInen Mathematiker zu seiner Party none

of-my friends

has some mathematician to his

party

eingeladen. invited

‘None of my friends invited some mathematician to his party.’ The only difference between (3.29a) and (3.30) lies in the accent pattern of the indefinite. It is the NP-complement that receives the main accent in (3.29a) (which corresponds to the ‘neutral’ stress pattern in German), whereas in (3.30) it is the determiner. I will refer to this kind of indefinite, which exhibits a strong (usually rising) accent on its determiner, as emphatic indefinites in the following. Indefinites with the ‘neutral’ intonation pattern, where the main accent falls on the NP-complement, will be referred to as slim indefinites. German emphatic indefinites pattern with English indefinites that are realized with the determiner some instead of a (see the translation in (3.30) vs. (3.29)): some-indefinites obtain genuine wide scope much easier than a-indefinites. I will thus speak of some-indefinites as being emphatic and a-indefinites as representing slim indefinites in English.9 Consider the following contrast. 8 This effect can be further strengthened when the indefinite article is phonetically reduced to ‘n, i.e. if einen Mathematiker (a mathematician) in (3.29a) is replaced by ‘n Mathematiker. However, note that Pafel (2005) argues that such indefinites with phonetically reduced determiners are non-quantificational. He treats them as kind-denoting entities. I take a different view and treat them as ordinary quantificational indefinites. 9 There is a direct relationship to the weak-strong distinction of unstressed and stressed some in English discussed e.g. in (Milsark, 1977). The slim variant is sometimes set apart from the emphatic version by noting sm and SOME, respectively. However, we will see that the facts about the correct accent placement are not as straightforward in English as they are in German. It is usually assumed that SOME-indefinites represent strong quantifiers, which are existence-presupposing, whereas sm-indefinites denote weak quantifiers, which are not. As I do not follow the theoretical claim that the emphatic version denotes a different quantifier

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a. None of my friends invited a mathematician to the party. b. None of my friends invited some mathematician to the party.

While (3.31a) only supports a narrow scope reading for the indefinite, (3.31b) supports a wide scope reading and could be followed by Namely this friend of Peter’s from Cologne. However, unlike in German, the determiner does not have to be accented in order to make this wide scope reading available.10 We will encounter examples where stressing the determiner even makes the wide scope reading vanish, but then again others where stressing the determiner brings out the wide scope reading. The interrelation of accenting and wide scope readings in English is as yet unclear and I will set this issue aside, but German seems to be more systematic here. A heavy accent on the determiner evokes a wide scope reading. In English, a similar difference manifests itself in the choice of the determiner: sometimes a-indefinites only support narrow scope readings and in the very same contexts some-indefinites can obtain wide scope readings. Going back to the German cases, the generalization now could be the following: a heavy accent on the determiner indicates a specific/referential use of the indefinite on the speaker’s side (cf. example (3.30)), while a destressed determiner indicates a nonspecific/non-referential reading (cf. example (3.29a)). However, such a generalization would be entirely ad hoc and there does not seem to be a deeper reason for such a generalization. It seems more reasonable to assume that (3.30) embodies a genuine wide scope reading for einen Mathematiker (some mathematician). The deeper reason for this wide scope reading still needs to be explained and will become clear in the course of this chapter. This contrasts with examples (3.29b,c), which, when read in a non-variation reading, most plausibly embody a specific/referential/extremely domainrestricted reading. Pafel (2005, pp. 193–197) also observes that a heavy accent on the determiner of an indefinite in German influences the possible readings for this indefinite.11 He shows that sentences with quantificational subjects and indefinite objects with non-heavy NPcomplements do not bear inverse scope readings, unless the indefinite is realized with an accent on the determiner. He gives the examples in (3.32) (Pafel, 2005, p. 11, 196) and argues – on the basis of investigations of judgments of more than a dozen native speakers of German – that (3.32a) does not exhibit an inverse scope reading, whereas (3.32b) clearly does. (In the examples I adopted Pafel’s notations of accent markings.)

than the slim version, I refrain from utilizing the notions weak and strong and stick to my theory-neutral terminology. 10 Note that examples along the lines of (3.31b) and their possible continuation by namely -sentences contradict a claim of Farkas (2002) that if a speaker chooses the determiner some (instead of a ) this indicates that the speaker is unable or unwilling to identify the verifying value in subsequent discourse. She calls this the ‘no imminent identification requirement’ (attributing this observation to M. Israel). Farkas deals with destressed some and my English informants tell me that the determiner in this example at least can be destressed. 11 It is also remarked in (van Geenhoven, 1998, p. 208) that [f]ocusing the indefinite determiner einen (a) can give rise to a wide scope reading [...]. Although the involved accent is presumably not a simple focal one – at least not only a focal one (the accent might be the result of a focal accent that is embedded in a topical constituent) –, the basic observation made is the same.

CHAPTER 3. GENUINE AND APPARENT SCOPE READINGS (3.32)

77

a. Jeder Pianist hat eine Beethovensonate in seinem ReperTOIRE. every pianist has a

Beethoven sonata in his

repertoire

‘Every pianist has some Beethoven sonata in his repertoire.’ b. Jeder Pianist hat EI↑ne # BEETցhoven-Sonate in seinem every pianist has some

Beethoven sonata

in his

ReperTOIRE. repertoire

‘Some Beethoven sonata every pianist has in his repertoire.’ Pafel (2005) concludes that emphatic indefinites are not quantificational and treats indefinites in cases like (3.32b) as ‘specific’, i.e. referential-like (although he assumes that a specific indefinite triggers an existential quantifier on semantic structure eventually). Note that Pafel judges the involved accent on the determiner to be a static high tone, whereas I have assumed the emphatic stress pattern to involve a rising tone in the usual case. He describes the involved accent pattern in the following way: The prosody in mind is the one with a heavy accent on eine (presumably a static high tone ↑), an intonation break (#) after eine, and a falling accent on Beethoven (Pafel, 2005, p. 11, 196). However, as pointed out above, such emphatic indefinites can probably also be realized with a falling tone as claimed by Jacobs (1997) for indefinites in I-specification constructions, which are very similar (or even identical) to the cases at hand. Summing up, in line with Pafel, I take the view that emphatic indefinites are instances of indefinites that seem to take wide scope. However, as will be argued in the upcoming section, they embody genuine wide scope readings and not specific or referential readings, as Pafel assumes.

Genuine wide scope exists: the argument in detail Let us go through the line of argument in detail. I start with the observation that there are sentences that are unambiguous in that they only support a co-variation reading. This means that in these cases, the indefinite can only take narrow scope. In other words, we observe that a (genuine) wide scope interpretation as well as extreme implicit domain restriction and a referential/specific interpretation are excluded. (3.33)

a. Ich war gestern auf einer Party mit vielen internationalen Gästen und habe mich mit sehr vielen Studenten unterhalten. (I went to a party with many international guests yesterday and talked to many students there.) b. # Verrückterweise kam jeder Student, mit dem ich mich came every student

crazily

with whom I

myself

unterhalten hatte, von einer UNi. talked

had

from a

university

‘Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from a university.’

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(3.33b) with the German simple indefinite einer UNi (a university) is infelicitous in continuation of (3.33a), because it somehow seems to convey trivial information, which particularly cannot be regarded as odd. The same holds for English and a-indefinites. (3.34)

a. I went to a party with many international guests yesterday and talked to many students there. b. # Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from a university.

The fact that every student the speaker spoke to was from/studied at some university or other is something the hearer knows anyway if he is acquainted with the meaning of the word student.12 In other words, the sentences seem to support a co-variation reading only. The wide scope or referential/specific/extremely domain-restricted reading seems to be missing. But such a non-variation reading would be a perfectly sensible and informative one, namely stating that every student the speaker talked to was from one and the same university. Yet, this reading is absent, which is why the sentences appear so odd. So what does this tell us? It makes us become aware of the fact that the involved indefinites cannot take (genuine) wide scope over the subject, nor do they allow for a specific/referential/extremely domain-restricted reading in these sentences. Such sentences make up the perfect starting point for further investigations of minimal variants and the readings they exhibit. The fact that (3.33b) and (3.34b) do not have a specific/referential/singleton set reading makes us realize that the sentences actually also lack a wide scope reading. We would not become aware of this when evaluating other sentences that allow for some apparent wide scope reading such as the minimally modified examples (3.35) and (3.36), where the involved indefinites are slightly heavier than in the original examples: von einer Uni (from a university) has been replaced by von einer deutschen Uni (from a German university) in the German example, likewise in English. (3.35)

a. Gestern war ich auf einer Party. (Yesterday, I went to a party.) b. Verrückterweise kam jeder Student, mit dem ich mich unterhalten crazily

came every student

with whom I

myself talked

hatte, von einer deutschen UNi. had

from a

German

university

‘Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from a German university.’ c. Nämlich von der Humboldt-Universität. Namely from Humboldt University. (3.36)

a. Yesterday, I went to a party. b. Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from a German university. c. Namely from Humboldt University.

12 There is one way to make sense of the sentence, namely when one is comparing universities with other institutions that have students (e.g. so called Fachhochschulen (universities of applied sciences) in German). The reader is asked to ignore such readings and assume for the sake of the argument that the only institutions that host students are universities.


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(3.35b) and its English variant in (3.36b) seem to be ambiguous between a co-variation and a non-variation reading of eine deutsche Uni /a German university, which is evidenced by the fact that they can be continued with the remark in (c). Unlike in (3.33) and (3.34), a non-variation reading is not entirely excluded here. This is due to the fact that (3.35b)/(3.36b) can be read specifically/referentially/as extremely domainrestricted. As I have noted above it has often been observed (see e.g. Fodor and Sag, 1982; Geurts, 2002) that a specific/referential reading is more easily available in German and English if the DP is heavier. Hence (3.35) allows more readily for a specific/referential reading than (3.33) just as well as (3.36) allows more readily for a specific/referential reading than (3.34). The adjective deutschen/German makes the DP heavier. In other words, neither (3.35b)/(3.36b) nor (3.33b)/(3.34b) have genuine wide scope readings. But in (3.35)/(3.36) the specific/referential/domain-restricted reading, i.e. an apparent wide scope reading, is possible. Hence, it is much easier to see that there is no genuine wide scope reading for (3.33b)/(3.34b) than for (3.35b)/(3.36b), because no such apparent readings interfere. All of this is important for the following reason: take the German example (3.33b). Here, we can be sure that the indefinite cannot be read specifically/referentially/as extremely domain-restricted due to the lack of a non-variation reading. If we can find a minimal variant of this sentence, embedded in exactly the same environment, that supports a non-variation reading, it is very likely that this reading is a genuine wide scope reading – precisely because there would be no reason that this minimal variant supports a specific/referential/domain-restricted interpretation for the indefinite (in exactly the same environment) as opposed to the version in (3.33b). In the following, I will give an example of such a minimal variant of the original example that actually allows for a non-variation reading. I claim that this reading comes about by means of a scope-shifting mechanism, because a referential/specific/domain-restricted reading can be excluded. Now consider the following example from German, which is entirely parallel to (3.33), except that the determiner of the indefinite receives a heavy accent. In other words, the following example involves an emphatic indefinite instead of the slim indefinite in the original example. (3.37)

a. Ich war gestern auf einer Party mit vielen internationalen Gästen und habe mich mit sehr vielen Studenten unterhalten. (I went to a party with many international guests yesterday and talked to many students there.) b. Verrückterweise kam jeder Student, mit dem ich mich unterhalten crazily

came every student

hatte, von ↑EIner Uni. had

from some

with whom I

myself talked

(Nämlich vom MIT.)

university namely

from MIT

‘Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from the same university. (Namely from MIT.)’ In German, the emphatic variant of (3.33b) in (3.37b) with a heavy accent on the determiner is perfectly sensible. It receives the non-variation reading that was missing in the slim variant.

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Unfortunately, things are not as clear in English, if we substitute the slim indefinite a university in (3.34b) by the emphatic variant some university. (3.38)

a. I went to a party with many international guests yesterday and talked to many students there. b. Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from some university. (Namely from MIT.)

For some of my English informants the non-variation reading is now available. To them the sentence is ambiguous between a co-variation and a non-variation reading, if some is not accented. However, surprisingly, with strongly accented some, the sentence still seems to only obtain the infelicitous co-variation reading. For others, the sentence only has the infelicitous co-variation reading, no matter if the indefinite is realized with some as in (3.38) or with a as in (3.34b). Setting English aside for the moment and concentrating on German, I conclude that (3.37) is an instance of genuine wide scope for the following reasons: 1. it is not a specific reading, 2. it is not a reading that emerges via extreme domain restriction, and 3. it is not a referential reading. As for 1., no overt opaque operator is involved, which makes it very unlikely that specificity is involved. Furthermore, if a tacit epistemic operator could be assumed to be introduced in the case of (3.37), this should also be possible in the case of (3.33). But as (3.33) lacks a specific reading, this assumption is not plausible. In other words, if it can be assumed that a tacit opaque operator is involved, then this assumption can equally be made for the sentences that involve the emphatic variants of the indefinites as well as for those that involve the slim ones. An assumption that the insertion of a covert operator is only possible in the case of the emphatic variants would be highly implausible. To disprove 2., one would have to assume that it is possible to interpret the restrictor set of the emphatic indefinite in (3.37) as a singleton set. But then it would be unclear why the restrictor set of the slim indefinite in (3.33) should not be interpretable as a singleton set in the very same environment. Covert restriction is triggered by context. As the sentences appear in exactly identical contexts, such an assumption is implausible. Note furthermore that the accent on the determiner of emphatic indefinites in German seems to be the same one as the one for partitives, which is shown in the following example. (3.39)

a. Gestern hat Sarah sich

einige Unis

angeschaut.

yesterday has Sarah herself several universities looked-at

‘Yesterday, Sarah visited a few universities.’ b. ↑EIne der Unis / ↑EIne Uni hat ihr sogar gefallen. one of the universities / one university has her even liked ‘One of the universities / One university she actually liked.’ The preceding example makes it appear quite implausible that the restrictor set of emphatic indefinites in German is narrowed down to denote a singleton set by implicit


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domain restriction in the general case. The context sentence (3.39a) introduces a set of universities. The indefinite eine Universität (some university) in (3.39b) picks out one of those universities. But at the utterance point of this indefinite, there is no reason why the restrictor set should comprise fewer elements than the ones recently introduced, i.e. fewer than all the universities that have just been explicitly introduced in the preceding sentence. Also in the context of co-variation vs. non-variation readings, we can find examples where it is not possible to try to explain wide scope via implicit domain restriction. Here is again an example from German. (3.40)

a. Gestern haben sich die Schüler viele verschiedene Unis angeschaut. (Yesterday, the pupils visited many different universities.) bei ↑EIner Uni sofort b. Alle Schüler würden sich all

pupils

would

themselves at

one

university immediately

immatrikulieren. enroll

‘All pupils would enroll for one university, immediately.’ c. Nämlich bei der Humboldt-Universität. (Namely for Humboldt University.) Sentence (3.40b) allows for a non-variation reading of the indefinite, which is verified by the fact that (3.40c) is a felicitous continuation. However, the specified context in (3.40a) gives us no clue that the set of universities is implicitly restricted to a singleton set – to a set that contains only one university, i.e. the university that fulfills the sentence predicate, i.e. the university that is such that all pupils would like to enroll for it. Quite to the contrary, the context introduces many different universities, which are therefore all salient. Why should the set of universities be restricted to comprise only one (and the intended) university in (3.40b)? There is at least no obvious reasonable answer to this question. Additionally, as mentioned above (and shown in (3.39)), the accent on the determiner of emphatic indefinites is identical to the one on the determiner in partitives such as eine der Unis (one of the universities). It is well-known that partitives carry a nonuniqueness presupposition/implicature, i.e. it is usually assumed that for partitives to be licensed it is imperative that there are more relevant, contextually salient elements in the restrictor set than just the ones talked about in the target sentence. The same seems to hold for emphatic indefinites. As opposed to slim indefinites with lexically rich restrictors (such as eine deutsche UNi, die ich sehr schätze (a German university I really value)), which seem to carry no such non-uniqueness presupposition, emphatic indefinites seem to be licensed only if it is well-known that the restrictor set contains more elements than the one that is currently under discussion.13 This non-uniqueness 13 Nevertheless ordinary (slim and possibly also heavy) indefinites such as a (German) university (I really value) are also banned from uses where both the speaker and the hearer know that the restrictor set consists of only one element. Slim indefinites usually carry a uniqueness ‘antipresupposition’ along the lines: use this indefinite only if it is not taken for granted that there is only one (contextually salient) element in the restrictor set (see Percus, 2006). These antipresuppositions of indefinites can be explained if one considers the lexical items that they compete with. An obvious competitor of the indefinite determiner would be the definite determiner. What is important for our concerns is that while slim indefinites may carry antipresuppositions of the above-mentioned style, emphatic indefinites seem to carry genuine presuppositions/implications of the kind: there are more relevant and salient elements in the restrictor set.

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presupposition/implication of emphatic indefinites and partitives has probably the same source: both carry a heavy accent on the determiner. If this accent is interpreted as a focal accent that is embedded in a topical constituent (cf. e.g. von Fintel, 1994; Krifka, 1998), the non-uniqueness presupposition/implication follows straightforwardly. The focal accent invokes alternatives to the stressed determiner. In partitive constructions, the determiner is a numeral. (Note that in German the numeral ein (one) is form-identical to the indefinite determiner ein (a).) Stressing the numeral in EIne Uni (one university) in a sentence such as EIne Uni war gut gelegen (ONE university was situated suitably) only makes sense in a context where there are alternatives such as two, three, four (other) universities etc., which are not situated suitably or where the speaker is at least unsure whether they are. This explains the non-uniqueness presupposition/implication of indefinites with stressed determiners, i.e. emphatic and partitive ones. This line of argument can also account for the fact that emphatic indefinites usually induce ‘exactly’ interpretations. If the accent on the determiner one makes reference to alternatives such as two, three etc., it naturally follows that with EIne Uni war gut gelegen (ONE university was situated suitably) it is implicated that only one university is situated suitably. The alternatives (two, three, etc. universities) are implicitly excluded, as these form alternatives to the utterance that is made and the obvious reason for the speaker for not having chosen one of these alternatives is that the speaker knows that they are not true or at least that she does not know whether they are true (cf. Section 5.2 for more discussion of the role of intonation and the effect on possible interpretations). To conclude, (3.37) cannot be explained as an instance of extreme domain restriction to the effect that the restrictor set consists of only one element. Quite to the contrary, emphatic indefinites, as well as partitives, seem to presuppose/imply that the restrictor set contains more than one salient element. Extreme domain restriction is not a conclusive explanation for the data at hand. I have shown so far that the wide scope readings of the emphatic indefinites in the examples discussed above can neither be explained as specific readings (with respect to opaque operators) nor as readings that emerge via extreme domain restriction. Now it remains to exclude point 3., referentiality, from the enumeration above. The remaining question is: can the non-variation readings of the emphatic indefinites in the examples discussed so far be due to a referential/non-referential distinction with respect to the speaker’s mind? I will show that the answer is ‘no’. And hence there is only one way left to account for the non-variation reading of the emphatic indefinites: they take genuine wide scope. To make my point, let us first assume that these readings were indeed due to a referential interpretation. To account for the difference between emphatic and slim indefinites shown in (3.33) vs. (3.37), one would have to argue that only emphatic indefinites can denote speakers’ referents and that precisely this is not possible for slim indefinites. Under this assumption, it would in turn be problematic to account for the non-variation readings of heavy, yet slim indefinites as in (3.35). Assuming that only emphatic indefinites allow for a referential interpretation then is no viable option. The last remaining option would be to assume that simple slim indefinites cannot be interpreted referentially/specifically, but that emphatic ones as well as heavy slim indefinites such as the indefinite einer deutschen UNi in (3.35b)


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can. This does not seem to be a sensible move and hence I conclude that emphatic indefinites give rise to genuine wide scope readings. Anti-distributivity vs. wide scope There are types of sentences that, at first sight, seem to involve genuine wide scopetaking indefinites, but closer inspection reveals that they instantiate another type of apparent wide scope readings.14 Consider the following example. (3.41) Wir sitzen doch alle in EInem Boot. we sit

PART all in one

boat

‘We are all in the same boat.’ At first sight, it seems as if the indefinite, which is realized with a heavy accent on the determiner, can be assumed to take genuine wide scope. However, already the English translation makes clear that the accent on the determiner is not to indicate wide scope, but rather to indicate some kind of ‘non-distributivity’ reading. The accent might be licensed because it expresses the contrast of one and the same as opposed to possibly different ones. One can actually construct examples which are ambiguous between this ‘anti-distributivity’ reading and the usual wide scope one. (3.42)

a. Wenn Bine und Oli in EInem Hotel schlafen müssen, gibt es auf jeden if

Bine and Oli in one

hotel sleep

must

give it on every

¨ Fall Arger. case trouble

‘If Bine and Oli have to sleep in one (and the same) hotel, there will be trouble.’ b. Wenn Fritz und Frank durch EIne Tür gehen, gewinnen sie den if

Fritz and Frank through one door go

win

they the

Hauptgewinn. first prize

‘If Fritz and Frank go through one (and the same) door, they will win the first prize.’ c. Immer wenn Peter und Maria in EInem Auto sitzen, drückt Peter always when Peter and Maria in one

car

sit

pushes Peter

besonders aufs Gas. particularly on-the gas

‘When Peter and Maria sit in one (and the same) car, Peter speeds particularly fast.’ All sentences are ambiguous when uttered with an accent on the determiner of the indefinite, as indicated in the examples. Let us assume that (3.42a) is uttered in a context where several hotels are under discussion. The wide scope reading of (3.42a) can be described as saying that there is one particular hotel (e.g. the most uncomfortable one among the hotels) where Bine and Oli do not want to sleep. If they have to, there will be trouble. The ‘anti-distributivity’ reading, on the other hand, would 14 I

thank Manfred Krifka for bringing these phenomena to my attention.

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be true in a scenario where there is trouble whenever Bine and Oli have to spend the night in one and the same hotel, e.g. because they cannot stand each other. In other words, there will be trouble independent of the choice of the hotel. (3.42b) has to be imagined in a game show context. Fritz and Frank each have to go through one door separately and they cannot see which door the other one has gone through. The quiz master utters (3.42b) in the wide scope reading if there is one specific winning door and if Fritz and Frank coincidentally both step through that same door, they win. The ‘anti-distributivity’ reading is true if they win after stepping through one and the same door, no matter which one. Finally, (3.42c) is true in the wide scope reading if there is one particular car, say Paul’s Porsche, which is a very fast car. Furthermore, Peter wants to show off in front of Maria. Hence, whenever he drives Paul’s Porsche and Maria sits next to him he tries to impress her by driving really fast. But he does not try to drive fast when he drives other cars, because he knows that this would not impress Maria. On the other hand, the sentence is true in the ‘anti-distributivity’ reading if Peter drives fast whenever Maria sits next to him – whatever car he is driving. All three sentences have the two indicated readings.15 Unfortunately – contrary to what we had hoped for – there seems to be no correlation between the kind of accent on the determiner and the sentence’s interpretation. Both the wide scope and the ‘antidistributivity’ reading can be realized with a rising or a falling tone on the determiner (cf. Jacobs, 1997, who claims that indefinites in what he calls I-specification constructions can be realized with a rising or a falling tone on the determiner, although a rising accent is usually preferred, cf. Section 2.2.3). See the appendix, Section A.2 for the description and results of two informal pilot studies that investigated the correlation of the kind of accent on the determiner of an indefinite and its interpretation. I could not find any correlation – neither between a rising tone and a wide scope interpretation nor between a falling one and an ‘anti-distributivity’ reading (cf. experiment 2, Section A.2.2 of the appendix). Generally speaking, I found no distinctive accent pattern for (exceptional) wide scope readings (cf. experiment 1, Section A.2.1). Concerning a tentative analysis of these anti-distributivity readings, it seems that they come about due to a focal accent on the determiner that evokes alternatives to other determiners or number words. Furthermore, it is known that focal elements tend to take narrow scope (see Pafel 2005, pp. 82–84 and references cited therein). In the case of example (3.41), the indefinite einem Boot (one boat) has to take narrow scope. As the sentence is preferably interpreted in a cumulative reading, the sentence comes to mean the following: we all sit in one and the same boat and not in two three, four, etc. In principle, there is another reading to the sentence, namely a distributive one, which is, however, not very salient, namely that everyone sits in one (possibly different) boat, but not in two, three, four, etc. To contrast sitting in one boat with sitting in two or three would be a rather odd move, of course, and hence the reading is not very salient. This reading is, however, the only available one for (3.43), because jeder (everyone) forces a distributive reading. 15 The alert reader might have noticed that the sentences are not ambiguous in the strict sense, because in all three cases the wide scope reading implies the ‘anti-distributivity’ reading. I assume that the ambiguity is nevertheless genuine.

CHAPTER 3. GENUINE AND APPARENT SCOPE READINGS (3.43)

#

Jeder

85

sitzt in EInem Boot.

everyone sitzt in one

boat

‘Everyone sits in one boat.’

Summary

What I have shown in this section is the following: some sentences support a nonvariation reading with slim indefinites, but these readings can be argued to be only apparent wide scope readings – either because they are special cases of the narrow scope readings and therefore not genuine readings, because they are instances of specific or referential readings, or because they are evoked by extreme domain restriction. There are however sentences that only allow for a co-variation interpretation of the involved slim indefinite, i.e. genuine wide scope as well as specific/referential/extreme domain-restricted readings are missing – for whatever reason that may be the case. Yet, emphatic variants of these indefinites allow for a non-variation reading in the same environment. I have shown that the only way to account for these readings is via the assumption that the emphatic indefinites take genuine wide scope. Hence, not all non-variation readings can be reduced to apparent wide scope readings. Some wide scope readings are genuine. Note that my claim affects only one direction of the imaginable implication concerning emphatic form and wide scope interpretation. Emphatic indefinites receive a genuine wide scope interpretation.16 The other direction does not necessarily hold. There may very well be indefinites that receive a (scope-shifted) genuine wide scope interpretation without being realized emphatically. This explanation of the facts discussed above also clarifies the observation (cf. e.g. Farkas, 1981; Abusch, 1994; Kratzer, 1998; Bende-Farkas and Kamp, 2001) that some-indefinites lend themselves to non-local interpretations and in particular exceptional wide scope interpretations more readily than indefinites with the determiner a. According to the view presented here, this is so because some-indefinites, being instances of emphatic indefinites, often allow for genuine (exceptional) wide scope interpretations when a-indefinites, the slim variants, do not. This fact is especially clear when the NP-complement of the indefinite is not heavy enough to allow for a referential/specific/extremely domain-restricted interpretation of the indefinite, i.e. to allow for a seemingly wide scope interpretation. As a referential/specific/extremely domainrestricted interpretation is not always possible (only in certain contexts and/or when the descriptive content is ‘heavy’ enough), but scope-shifting always is, some-indefinites allow for a wide scope interpretation more easily.

16 I will discuss the underlying reason behind this implication and putative counterexamples to it in Chapter 5. For the moment, my aim was a very moderate one, namely to show that not all non-variation readings can be accounted for by non-scope shifting mechanisms.

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3.3 Functional readings In the preceding section, we have discussed cases of apparent wide scope, i.e. cases where an indefinite seems to receive wide scope over another operator, although in fact it takes narrow scope, and the illusion of a wide scope interpretation is evoked by other factors. We concluded that genuine wide scope readings do nevertheless exist. In this section, we will investigate the reverse phenomenon. There are readings of indefinites, in which the value of an indefinite co-varies with the values of some other operator because the indefinite contains a functional element. I claim that such a co-variation reading can nevertheless be an instance of a wide scope reading, namely a functional wide scope reading. I will show that this functional wide scope reading is – empirically and formally – distinguishable from a narrow scope reading. I want to make two major claims here: 1. functional wide scope readings or apparent narrow scope readings, exist, and 2. these readings are semantically different from genuine narrow scope readings, which means that not all narrow scope readings can be reduced to functional readings; hence genuine narrow scope readings also exist. Combining the claim from the last section that wide scope readings actually exist with the second claim of this section, we can conclude that scope readings are genuine. Neither can narrow scope be reduced to functional wide scope nor can wide scope be reduced to referentiality or some other phenomenon.

3.3.1 Data Let us start with the following example in English. (3.44) Everyone hates some relative (of his). Example (3.44) has two readings: one which represents the ordinary narrow scope reading, in which everyone is paired with some relative whom he hates; and one, which I call the functional wide scope reading, in which there is some specific kind of relative, say his mother in law, whom everyone hates. The first reading instantiates a pair-list reading, whereas the second reading is a genuine functional reading. The function could be the mother-in-law function, which is a function that maps every x to x’s mother in law. The functional reading is triggered by the NP relative of his, which is obviously a functional element that maps people to their relatives, where the pronoun his is bound by everyone. It can already be seen that indefinites in English can have the decisive functional reading even if there is no overt pronoun involved. Example (3.44) also supports a functional reading if the material in parentheses is omitted. This is because the NP relative is functional by itself, as a relative has to be interpreted with respect to someone whose relative he is. Quite generally, most NPs in English allow for a functional interpretation, even if they do not seem functional at first sight. The NPs book or picture for example can be reinterpreted as functional items to mean a book belonging to/written by someone or a picture of someone, respectively. The more likely such a reinterpretation is according to the context, the more readily available is a functional reading.


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I will differentiate between the functional wide scope reading and a simple narrow scope one by means of methods that are known from discussions about functional vs. pair-list readings of questions (as well as from discussions about functional DPs with relative clauses containing a quantifier). The function/pair-list distinction is usually not discussed in the context of quantifier scope, although it has important consequences for the interpretation of wide (and intermediate) scope indefinites by means of – parameterized or non-parameterized – choice functions (see Section 4.7). The only exceptions I am aware of are (Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984, Section 3.4) and (building on this) (Gärtner, 2001, p. 132), where a distinction between functional readings and pair-list readings is drawn in a very brief discussion of quantifier scope phenomena. I hope to convince the reader that a further investigation of the questions raised in this section might be worthwhile in order to learn more about the correct treatment of indefinites. Consider example (3.45), given the following context: In einer Schule wollte die Kunstlehrerin mit ihren Schülern eine Collage basteln und bat daher alle Schüler, zur nächsten Kunststunde ein Bild mitzubringen. Am Tag davor erinnerte sie die Kinder noch einmal daran, an alles zu denken, weil normalerweise immer jemand irgendetwas vergisst. Als sie dann zum Kunstunterricht kam, war sie total erstaunt, ... (At school, the arts teacher wanted to make a collage with her pupils and asked each pupil to bring a picture to the next lecture. The day before the arts class she reminded her pupils again not to forget, because usually at least some children forget what they were asked to bring. When the teacher came to the arts lecture, she was surprised, ...) (3.45) denn

↑EIN Bild

von sich,

because some picture of

das hatte u¨ berraschenderweise jeder

himself RP had surprisingly

every

Schüler mitgebracht. pupil

brought-along

‘because, surprisingly, every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ (3.45) has a co-variation reading, where the pictures vary with the pupils.17 But interestingly, the reading is not a simple narrow scope reading. The sentence cannot mean that every pupil brought along just some picture whatsoever, although this reading is made highly salient by the context and should therefore be expected by the hearer. The sentence exhibits only a functional wide scope reading. This reading can be paraphrased as follows: there is a method f of assigning pictures to pupils x, such that every x brought f (x).18 17 Note that the indefinite is realized emphatically, which is the usual way of realizing a left-dislocated indefinite in non-contrastive sentences, non-generic sentences, and sentences that do not contain a quantificational adverb, i.e. in non-marked true episodic sentences. We will discuss the reasons for this in Chapter 5. For the moment, it suffices to say that there is no other non-marked way of realizing the indefinite. In particular, a slim realization (with an accent on the NP-complement) would lead to a contrastive interpretation, where the NP Bild (picture) would have to be contrasted with other things. (3.45) would then have to be followed by a sentence such as Aber die BAStelpappe hatten wieder alle vergessen (But everyone forgot the paperboard). 18 I assume that properties such as picture fn are predicates that range over functions, i.e. picturefn denotes a set of picture-functions, functions that yield pictures when applied to some individual. This is only for expository purposes. A detailed compositional formalization of the derivation of functional wide scope readings will be given in Section 6.6. Note that Cresti (1995) also discusses the derivation

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QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS (3.46) ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]]

Interestingly, a simple narrow scope reading is available in (3.47a) (uttered in the same context as (3.45)), which is indicated in (3.47b) (and which is equivalent to (3.47c)). Note that here, in contrast to (3.45), the functional indefinite ein Bild von sich (a picture of himself ) is not in left-dislocated position. (3.47)

a. denn

jeder Schüler hatte tatsächlich ein BILD von sich

because every pupil

had indeed

a

picture of

himself


‘because every pupil had brought a picture of himself, indeed.’ b. ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ bring(x, f (x))]] c. ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃y[picture(y) ∧ of (y, x) ∧ bring(x, y)]] Anticipating the results from the treatment of functional indefinites that will be outlined in Chapter 6, the crucial difference between (3.45) and (3.47) lies in the fact that in (3.45) the decisive indefinite is topical and in (3.47) it is not. The interpretation of such topical functional indefinites will be discussed in Section 6.6. As it stands, the difference between (3.45) and (3.47a) would not be correctly represented, because, without further assumptions, formulas (3.46) and (3.47b,c) are obviously equivalent (for this conclusion cf. also Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984).19 In other words, if simply the existence of a function f in (3.46) that maps pupils to pictures of themselves made sentence (3.45) true, the functional wide scope reading would be indistinguishable from the narrow scope reading. A model for the narrow scope scenario, i.e. where every pupil brought a picture of himself, certainly also satisfies (3.46), because there exists a function f such that every pupil brought f (x). This function maps every pupil to the picture he brought. To distinguish the functional wide scope reading from the narrow scope reading, it is important that f cannot denote just any function whatsoever. A function in the linguistic world is not just any function. f can only be instantiated by a function with well-defined properties. In the literature, it has been proposed in other contexts (in particular in connection with answers to wh questions) that such linguistically relevant functions have to be natural functions as opposed to just arbitrary functions (cf. among others Chierchia, 1993; Jacobson, 1999; Sharvit, 1997). I will discuss the properties of such ‘natural functions’ below. First I will lay out the reasons that this distinction is indeed empirically motivated. of such functional wide scope readings. However, in her framework indefinites do not denote GQs, but free variables. Consequently, her analysis, which relies on existential closure of a function variable and presupposition accommodation, is substantially different from mine and will not be discussed any further. 19 A functional construal of narrow scope as in (3.46) goes back to Thoralf Albert Skolem, who has shown that a first-order formula of the form ∀x[∃y[R(x, y)]] is (satisfiably) equivalent to ∀x[R(x, f (x))], where R is a relation and f is a function – both being non-logical constants and thus to be interpreted by the model. To prove this equivalence, one has to assume the Axiom of Choice (at least in the case of infinite functions). Definition 3.2 (The Axiom of Choice) Let C be a collection of nonempty sets. Then one can choose a member from each set in that collection. Hence, there exists a function f defined on C with the property that, for each set S in the collection, f (S) is a member of S.


89

On the empirical side, one can differentiate between the different readings of functional and genuine narrow scope readings (here of (3.45) on the one side and (3.47) on the other) by means of the possible continuations of the respective sentences (cf. Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984). In other words, empirically, the difference between the functional wide scope reading and a true narrow scope reading can be brought to light by the possible subsequent contexts. (3.45) can be followed by (3.48) Nämlich das (jeweilige) Einschulungsbild. namely

the (respective) picture of the first day at school

‘Namely the picture of the pupil’s first day at school.’ But an enumeration of person-picture pairs such as given in (3.49) would not be an appropriate continuation of (3.45). (3.49) ? Nämlich/Und zwar Peter ein Bild namely

Peter a

seiner Einschulung,

Bild, auf dem er auf einem Pferd reitet, Maria ein Bild picture on which he on a

Fritz ein

picture of-his first-day-at-school Fritz a horse rides Maria a

von ihr und

picture of

her and

ihrer Mutter, ... her

mother

‘Namely Peter brought a picture of his first day at school, Fritz, a picture where he is riding a horse, Maria, a picture of her and her mother, ...’ In fact, (3.49) would be a perfect continuation of (3.47a), where ein Bild von sich (a picture of himself ) takes narrow scope with respect to the pupils. If the formula in (3.46) is the correct representation of (3.45), i.e. of a functional wide scope reading, the data in (3.48) and (3.49) suggest that f can be equated with the function x’s picture of his first day at school, which maps every x (pupils in this case) to the picture of x on his first day at school, but not with the enumeration of personpicture pairs as in (3.49). In line with Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984), I take this as an indication that pair-listings do not count as functions per se. The difference between functional readings and pair-list readings is better known from constituent questions with quantifiers exemplified in (3.50) and (3.51) from (Krifka, 2001b, pp. 1–2.). (3.50)

a. b. c. d.

Which dish did every guest make? Pasta. His favorite dish. Al, the pasta; Bill, the salad; and Carl, the pudding.

All answers (3.50b–d) are legitimate answers to (3.50a). At first sight, it might appear that (3.50b) is different in nature from answers (3.50c,d), which can be grouped together as exemplifying some kind of functional answer. (3.50c) might just be a short form for (3.50d). However, the following example shows that it is in fact answers (3.50b,c) that should be grouped together, and (3.50d) that should be regarded as a special case that has to be accounted for by entirely different means. (3.51)

a. Which dish did most guests make? b. Pasta.

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QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS c. Their favorite dish. d. # Al, the pasta; Bill, the salad; and Carl, the pudding.

While (3.50a), which contains the quantifier every guest, allows for the pair-list elaboration in (3.50d), (3.51a) with the quantifier most guests in subject position does not allow for such an answer, a property shared by most other quantifiers. This in turn shows that there is a crucial difference between the functional reading on the one hand and the pair-list reading on the other, because most quantifiers in questions trigger the former, but not the latter (cf. Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984, Chapter 3).20 There are basically two ways to deal with the observed phenomena: Either pair-list readings of questions are considered to be functional readings, but functional readings of a different kind, namely non-natural ones (cf. among others Engdahl, 1985; Chierchia, 1993). Or pair-list readings are not treated as functional readings right from the start (see e.g. Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984; Krifka, 2001b).21

3.3.2

Natural Functions

In the previous section, we have seen that genuine functional readings (i.e non-pair-list readings) involve functions of a special kind, which are often referred to as natural functions. In the following I will discuss what has been proposed in the literature to distinguish between ‘natural’ and other functions.

Hintikka’s view Hintikka (1986) argues that certain functions have to be understood as natural functions and that naturalness can come about in two ways: either the function is a simple and familiar function such as the mother- or father-function, or the sentence under discussion is constructed in such a way that the hearer’s attention is drawn to a functional interpretation. Hintikka (1986, p. 334) expresses this second possibility for naturalness in the following way: What makes the functional reading natural [...] is not that the crucial value of the function variable in question is already familiar to us, but that the writer is unmistakably calling his reader’s attention to it, in order to discuss it and perchance even to find out what it is. He gives the example in (3.52) (see Hintikka, 1986, p. 332) to illustrate this. (3.52) A certain sum of money will be payed for each quantity of this commodity. In this example, the reader’s attention is drawn to the respective amounts of money for each quantity. Now reconsider example (3.12), repeated below as (3.53). (3.53) Each husband had forgotten a certain date – his wife’s birthday. 20 For

more arguments that pair-list and functional answers have to be kept separately, see (Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984; Sharvit, 1997). 21 It would lead too far astray to discuss all the advantages and problems of the two divergent views. For an overview of the arguments for and against a functional treatment of pair-lists and discussion of an alternative method by quantifying into questions, see (Chierchia, 1993).


91

As discussed in Section 3.1.2, Hintikka proposes that indefinites modified by certain take scope outside of epistemic operators. He assumes a tacit operator I know (KI ) applied to the entire sentence in (3.53). The indefinite a certain date now must be interpreted outside of the scope of the epistemic operator I know, which, under standard assumptions, would mean that it would have to take scope over the entire sentence. However, Hintikka argues that the indefinite does not necessarily have to take scope over the quantifier each husband, which is, of course, a very exceptional and non-standard assumption.22 This reading, he argues, is representable as the functional reading in (3.54). (3.54) ∃f [KI (∀y[husband (y) → forget(y, f (y))])] However, in light of our discussion in connection with examples (3.44) and (3.45) above, there is now another possibility of deriving the reading in (3.54), which does not rely on the undesired assumption that quantifiers can take scope over some operator O1 that c-commands operator O2 without taking scope over this operator O2 at the same time. The indefinite can be interpreted as inherently functional. In this case, the specific DP would be interpreted as a certain date depending on the respective husband. The indefinite can then be assumed to take ordinary wide scope over KI and all other operators in its scope, i.e. also over each husband. The result would be similar to the one predicted in Hintikka’s approach (the representation given in (3.54)). As the existential quantification over the function f takes wider scope than all other operators, this reading would be a functional wide scope reading. Let us now assume that the naturalness restriction proposed by Hintikka is imposed on f in (3.54), i.e. that the domain of quantification over f comprises only natural functions, where naturalness is understood in Hintikka’s sense. Unfortunately, these restrictions would still not suffice to single out the correct functional wide scope reading that we are after, because the proposed naturalness definition does not allow us to discriminate between natural function readings and simple pair-list assignments. Nothing would prevent f in (3.54) from referring to a simple pair-list, if this pair-list could correspond to the function that the writer is unmistakably calling his reader’s attention to. Hence, Hintikka’s notion of naturalness does not help to distinguish ‘natural’ functions from arbitrary ones and pair-lists and is therefore an inappropriate means to restrict the available functions in (3.54) such that the intuitive truth conditions of (3.53) could be correctly accounted for.

Sharvit’s view Sharvit (1997) also takes it that both pair-lists and more natural concepts, such as the mother-function, denote functions. However, she argues that natural functions and pair-lists are of different semantic types. She regards the mother-function as a ‘function-in-intension’ of type hhe, ti, he, eii and a pair-list enumeration as a ‘functionin-extension’ of type he, ei (see Sharvit, 1997, pp. 56–57). A function-in-intension is 22 Note that Hintikka assumes that quantifiers quite generally show this exceptional behavior of exhibiting non-linear scope relations, also in the absence of epistemic operators. Hintikka (1974) dubs these readings branching readings.

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defined by a function-definition schema and has to be applied to a set to yield a function-in-extension. Sharvit (1997, p. 57) gives the following definition for a natural function: Definition 3.3 (Sharvit, 1997) A function h is natural, if there is a contextually salient function-definition schema S, such that h maps every relevant set to the unique function which satisfies S, and of which that set is the domain. The natural mother-function would be represented as follows (see Sharvit, 1997, p. 59): (3.55) λP σg[Dom(g) = P ∧ ∀x[x ∈ Dom(g) → g(x) = mother of (x)]], where σ is the uniqueness/maximality operator Hence, the natural mother-function is a function from possible domains to the functions which satisfy the salient function definition schema ‘mother’ [= ‘mother of ’ in the above formula, CE] (Sharvit, 1997, p. 58). It is emphasized that the function definition schema has to be contextually salient (in some unspecified sense). This contextual salience is understood in the same way as it is in (Hintikka, 1986) (in his first sense), i.e. the function schema must have been previously mentioned or familiar to the hearer, because it describes a widely known concept.

3.3.3

Properties of Natural Functions

I will show that natural functions do not have to be contextually salient in any sense. The function in the pupil-picture example (3.46), for example, can definitely refer to a function that is not salient before it is addressed. This is evidenced by the fact that (3.45) can be followed by (3.56). (3.56) Nämlich das Bild, das auf der letzten Klassenfahrt gemacht wurde und namely

the picture that on the last

school-trip

den jeweiligen Schüler mit einem dreiköpfigen the respective pupil

with a

made

was

and

Dinosaurier zeigt.

with-three-heads dinosaur

shows

‘Namely the picture that had been taken during the last school trip, which shows the respective pupil with a dinosaur with three heads.’ It is quite clear that the function in (3.56) is neither natural in the sense that it is a simple function nor salient in the usual meaning before it has been mentioned. Kratzer (1998, 2003) argues that functions can be salient in the sense that they are in the speaker’s mind; so from the speaker’s point of view, the function under discussion can be regarded as salient. Kratzer admits that there are readings in which the speaker does not know the relevant function himself, but maybe heard from someone else about this function. Yet, so Kratzer argues, he would have some method in mind to determine the value of the function. It is, however, not appealing to subsume speaker’s knowledge under the heading salience. Furthermore, I will show in Section 4.4 that even this assumption cannot account for the full range of data. There are wide scope readings


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in which the speaker does not know any more about the individual or function that is taking wide scope than the fact that it does take wide scope. I suggest taking a different route to account for the functional wide scope readings. In line with (Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984; Krifka, 2001b), I take it that pair-list enumerations do not count as functions in the first place. They are not of functional type. To single out those functions that are usually referred to as ‘natural’ functions, the domain of the functions that can be quantified over has to be restricted, as has been proposed by Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984). Natural functions in this sense must have the following properties23 : 1. they must be nameable, which relates to the concept of the function-definition schema of natural functions in (Sharvit, 1997) and is also an idea hinted at in (Chierchia, 1993, p. 212: functions that we can readily access or define (my emphasis, CE)); and 2. they must be informative. We will see that it seems as if there was a third restriction on functions, namely that they must not be over-informative, i.e. they must be expected to some extent. But this alleged restriction will in the end turn out not to be a restriction on the functions themselves, but a result of other restrictions triggered by the context in which the functions appear. All these requirements do not have to be stipulated, but can be derived from more general constraints that have to hold for natural language exchanges anyway. Let us reconsider the pupil-picture example (3.45) from the beginning of this section (repeated below, slightly simplified) and discuss in detail how the proposed restrictions on functions can correctly account for the functional wide scope reading of (3.57a), represented in (3.57b). (3.57c) shows the version that supports a narrow scope reading, which is represented in (3.57d,e). (3.57)

a. ↑EIN Bild

von sich,

some picture of

das hatte jeder Schüler mitgebracht.

himself RP had every pupil

brought-along

‘Every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ b. ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] c. Jeder Schüler hatte ein BILD von sich mitgebracht. every pupil

had a

picture of

himself brought-along

‘Every pupil had brought a picture of himself.’ d. ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ bring(x, f (x))]] e. ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃y[picture(y) ∧ of (y, x) ∧ bring(x, y)]] To ensure that (3.57b) is not simply equivalent to the narrow scope reading in (3.57d) (which is equivalent to (3.57e)), f must be a natural function. A natural function must meet the properties I specify below.

Nameability First, function f in (3.57b) has to be nameable, which means that it must be possible to refer to the function by a linguistic object. Concepts such as every pupil’s picture of 23 (Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1984, p. 198) only have a short comment on the properties of these functions that one can quantify over. They have to be either conventional in some sense (such as the mother-function, the wife-function, etc.) and thus in some sense computable, or they must be made computable by the context.

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his first day at school then have a name and hence denote functions. Pair-lists on the other hand do not count as ‘naming a function’ and therefore do not denote functions in this sense. However, there certainly needs to be said more about what can count as naming a function and why pair lists cannot possibly make good names of functions. The nameability concept does not exclude naming a function by way of saying something like: the y such that x = x1 and y = y1 or . . . or x = xn and y = yn .24 An additional simplicity criterion would have to exclude such descriptions, which would make the nameability criterion superfluous to a certain extent. A first attempt to exclude such function descriptions would be by postulating that the functions have to be open for different kinds of function domains (cf. the concept of a function definition schema in Sharvit 1997). The pair-list function described above has a fixed domain, however. Yet, one could construct a related case where the y-value of a function of the following kind is given: the y such that x = x1 and y = y1 or . . . x = xn and y = yn and c for all other x, where c is some constant. This function is open for all kinds of domains. Yet, intuitively, it should not count as a nameable function. The relevant feature here seems to be the fact that there is a case differentiation in the domain of the function, which makes it an unsuitable candidate for a function name. An in-depth investigation of these issues would be needed to say more about the underlying factors of nameability (or simplicity or naturalness), which is beyond the scope of this book. The nameability criterion might actually follow from a more general constraint on language use. The existence of objects that have names can be taken for granted in any language model. Hence, the existence of nameable functions can be taken for granted. If a speaker refers to an object, he must make sure that this object actually exists in the hearer’s model. If the speaker refers to a function, the hearer assumes that the speaker is referring to a nameable function, because the speaker can only be sure of the existence of nameable functions in the hearer’s model. Certainly, other functions are construable and might exist, but while the existence of these functions cannot be excluded, their existence cannot be taken for granted either – at least not in the case of infinite functions and when the Axiom of Choice is not assumed.25 There is a loose connection to what Moltmann (1997) calls the Acceptance Condition on Domains of Underived Contexts, which says that for a context c, D(c) [= the domain of c, CE] contains only entities that the speaker and the addressee accept. Moltmann uses this condition to restrict the domain of a context to accepted entities (and hence exclude merely possible entities). The same seems to hold for functions. Only nameable functions can be assumed to be accepted by the speaker and the hearer; other ‘merely possible’ functions are not elements of the domain. Informativity If we want to make sure that functional wide scope readings cannot be trivialized and made equivalent to simple narrow scope readings, it remains to be explained why the 24 Thanks

to Ede Zimmermann for pointing this out. thank Manfred Krifka and Peter Staudacher for pointing me to the Axiom of Choice and its relevance to my concerns. See also footnote 19. 25 I


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function the picture that every pupil brought is not a possible value for f in (3.57b). If f could refer to this function, the functional wide scope reading would be indistinguishable from the narrow scope reading. The possibility of resolving f to this function would lead to uninformativity, however. This issue is independent of the nameability criterion. The function the picture that every pupil brought meets the nameability criterion, of course. The function has a name and is thus of the right (function) type. However, the mere existence of this function already follows from the narrow scope reading of the indefinite. If every pupil brought along some picture of himself, there also exists a function that assigns to each pupil the picture that he brought. In other words, if the speaker simply intended to communicate the narrow scope reading in (3.57d), there would be no reason for him to choose sentence (3.57a) instead of the simpler form (3.57c) to convey this meaning. Therefore, (3.57c) instantiates the unmarked way to convey the narrow scope reading, whereas (3.57a) would clearly be a marked form. The ‘complicated’ way of communicating the narrow scope reading would be blocked by the possibility of conveying the same information by simpler means. Hence, f cannot be resolved to the function that describes the narrow scope reading of the sentence. There is a related phenomenon, namely that (3.57a) cannot be continued by (3.58a). (3.58)

a.

#

Namely the picture that every pupil brought.

b.

#

Namely, every pupil brought the picture that he brought.

c. ∃f [bring picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] (3.58a) would be entirely uninformative when uttered in continuation of (3.57a). It is understood to mean that f is to be resolved to the function the picture that everybody brought. But the fact that this function exists is already known after the utterance of (3.57a) and – more importantly – before (3.58a) is uttered. The very same constraint prohibits (3.59a) from being continued by (3.59b) or (3.60a) from being answered by (3.60b). (3.59)

a. If some relative of mine dies, Paul will inherit a fortune. b. # Namely the relative that is such that if he dies Paul will inherit a fortune.

(3.60)

a. Who killed Paul? b. # Paul’s murderer. / # Someone.

The reason why (3.60b) does not count as an appropriate answer to (3.60a) and why (3.59b) is not an appropriate continuation of (3.59a) lies in the information content of the respective utterances. (3.60b) does not increase the questioner’s knowledge. The same holds for (3.59b) and the uninformative continuation of (3.57a) by (3.58a). All those continuations would be uninformative, because they do not rule out any worlds that support the information before the very utterance is made.

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Expectance The nameability and the informativity criterion seem at first to be insufficient to account correctly for the restrictions on functional wide scope readings.26 It seems as if there was another restriction on the possible domain of functions, namely that the involved functions can only be resolved to functions that can be expected. This requirement is easier to see in the following example in German than in our original pupil-picture example. (3.61)

a. ↑EInen Verwandten von sich, some relative

b.

of

den hat jeder Schüler mitgebracht.

himself RP has every pupil

brought-along

‘Every pupil has brought along a certain relative.’ Nämlich (jeweils) seinen besten Freund.

#

namely

respectively his

best

friend

‘Namely his best friend.’ c. Nämlich (jeweils) seinen Großvater. namely

respectively his

grandfather

‘Namely his grandfather.’ Both x’s best friend and x’s grandfather describe functions. The former function maps individuals x to the best friend of x and the latter maps individuals x to the grandfather of x. Both functions describe very simple nameable concepts and both functions are not uninformative with respect to (3.61a). But only (3.61c) and not (3.61b) is a felicitous continuation of (3.61a), even under the assumption that the world in which the sentences are evaluated is such that coincidentally the best friend of every (relevant) person happens to be a relative of this person. The relevant difference between the two functions seems to be that (3.61c) describes a function that yields values that necessarily meet the NP-restriction of the preceding indefinite, i.e. that they are relatives of the respective person. (3.61b), on the other hand, describes a function that maps persons x to their best friends. This function does not necessarily yield values that are relatives of x. It may just happen to be like this in the actual world. However, the unacceptability of (3.61b) in continuation of (3.61a) is in fact not due to a restriction that has to be imposed on the function that appears in the functional wide scope representation for (3.61a), but rather is due to the interpretation of nämlich (namely). As can be seen below, nämlich (namely) triggers the presupposition that the individual or function appearing to its right has the property ascribed to the indefinite in the preceding sentence. Let us first consider a simpler example. (3.62)

a. ↑EInen Freund von mir, den kennt jeder. some friend

b.

of

mine RP knows everyone

‘Some friend of mine everybody knows.’ (?) Nämlich Michael Jackson. namely

Michael Jackson

‘Namely Michael Jackson.’ 26 I

thank Ede Zimmermann for making this clear to me.


97

c. Nämlich meinen Mitbewohner. namely

my

flatmate

‘Namely my flatmate.’ The most probable reaction of a hearer to (3.62a) followed by (3.62b) would be to express some kind of astonishment at the fact that Michael Jackson is a friend of the speaker. But this information is not asserted by the utterance in (3.62a) nor by the one in (3.62b). (3.62b) seems to simply assert that everyone knows Michael Jackson, but it presupposes in combination with (3.62a) that Michael Jackson is a friend of the speaker. The relevant information seems to be presupposed, the presupposition trigger being nämlich (namely).27 Consequently, (3.62a) continued by (3.62c) appears much more natural, because the presupposition that the speaker’s flatmate is also a friend of the speaker is easier to accommodate than the presupposition that Michael Jackson is a friend of the speaker. This is reminiscent of the well-known fact that likely things are easier to be accommodated than unlikely/unexpected ones. Consider the following contrast (the example is taken from Kadmon, 2001, p. 19). (3.63)

a. My dog is at the door. b.

#

My giraffe is at the door.

Suppose that the speaker, who utters (3.63a,b), is unfamiliar to the hearer, i.e. the hearer does not know anything about the speaker’s life, in particular the hearer does not know whether the speaker owns any pets or animals. Should the speaker utter (3.63a), a presupposition is triggered by the DP my dog, namely that the speaker owns a dog. The hearer is willing to accept this, and hence the presupposition is easily accommodated. But as it is very uncommon for someone to own a giraffe, a similar presupposition is much harder to accommodate in (3.63b) and the sentence sounds somewhat bizarre. The contrast between (3.62a,b) can be traced back to the same source. As it is much more likely that the speaker’s flatmate rather than Michael Jackson is a friend of the speaker, (3.62c) sounds more natural than (3.62b). Likewise, (3.64) sounds much more natural than (3.61a) followed by (3.61b), because it is easy to accommodate that every pupil’s best friend is also a classmate. (3.64)

a. ↑EInen Klassenkameraden, den hat jeder Schüler mitgebracht. some class-mate

b.

RP has every pupil

brought-along

‘Every pupil has brought along a certain class-mate.’ (?) Nämlich (jeweils) seinen besten Freund. namely

respectively his

best

friend

‘Namely his best friend.’ 27 The presuppositional treatment of n¨ amlich (namely) was suggested to me by Christian Ebert. The fact that such a presupposition is triggered is not surprising at all considering the origin of the word nämlich, as ¯ , was pointed out to me by Manfred Krifka. It is derived from the Middle High German word name(n)liche which means explicitly named (see Kluge, 1999). This supports the view that in our example, there is a presupposition triggered that some friend of the speaker whom everybody knows can be ‘explicitly named’ as Michael Jackson/the new flatmate of the speaker. It thus also makes perfect sense that in the case of functional readings, the involved functions have to be nameable as I propose.

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I want to propose that nämlich -continuations have to be analyzed as elliptic. They remind one of standard cases of gapping, illustrated in the following example in German.28 (3.65)

a. Cassandra hat einen Apfel gegessen und Doreen eine Banane. Cassandra has an

apple eaten

and Doreen a

banana

‘Cassandra has eaten an apple and Doreen a banana.’ b. Cassandra hat einen Apfel gegessen und Doreen hat eine Banane Cassandra has an

apple eaten

and Doreen has a

banana

gegessen. eaten

‘Cassandra has eaten an apple and Doreen has eaten a banana.’ In parallel to (3.65a) which is interpreted as (3.65b), (3.64b) stands for (3.66a) and receives the interpretation in (3.66b). (3.66)

a. Jeder Schüler hat nämlich seinen besten Freund mitgebracht. every pupil

has namely his

best

friend

brought-along

‘Namely every pupil brought his best friend.’ b. ∃f [best friendfn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] In addition to the assertion the sentence makes (given in (3.66b)), the sentence also carries a presupposition along the following lines: the best friend function is a specific classmate function, i.e. everyone’s best friend is also one of his classmates. Finally, the interpretation restrictions for nämlich -continuations could be formulated as follows: (3.67) Nämlich -continuations assert their full-fledged content and trigger the presupposition that the reduced clause that is introduced by nämlich (namely) asymmetrically entails the sentence it continues. Entailment is meant to mean ‘pragmatic entailment’, including also presupposed background assumptions of the conversation. This analysis accounts straightforwardly for the fact that (3.62) above triggers the presupposition that Michael Jackson/the speaker’s flatmate is a friend of the speaker. The entailment everyone knows Michael Jackson/my flatmate ⇒ everyone knows a friend of mine can only hold if Michael Jackson/the speaker’s flatmate actually is a friend of the speaker.29 Hence, this information has to be accommodated. The nämlich continuation thus conveys the information (via presupposition accommodation) that Michael Jackson/the speaker’s flatmate is a friend of the speaker. This analysis also directly accounts for (3.64). If it holds that every pupil brought along his best friend ⇒ every pupil brought along a classmate, then the best-friend-function must be a subtype of the classmate-function. 28 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing me to the resemblance of n¨ amlich -continuations and gapping constructions, as well as for suggesting the analysis of nämlich -continuations that is outlined in the main text below. 29 Note that know has to be understood in its acquaintance reading and is thus transparent.


99

Consider some further examples that verify this analysis: (3.68)

a. ↑EInen Elefanten, den mag jeder. some elefant

RP likes everyone

‘Some elefant, everyone likes.’ b. Nämlich Dumbo. namely

Dumbo

‘Namely Dumbo.’ Asserted: ∀y[like(y, dumbo)] Presupposed: ∀y[like(y, dumbo)] ⇒ ∃x[elephant(x) ∧ ∀y[like(y, x)]] Example (3.68a) followed by (3.68b) is an instance of the Michael Jackson example (3.62) above and can be analyzed along the same lines. Here is an example that contains a functional indefinite and paralles the initial example (3.61). (3.69)

a. ↑EIN BILD von sich, some picture of

das mag keiner.

himself RP likes nobody

‘Some picture of himself, nobody likes.’ b. Nämlich sein Einschulungsbild. namely

his picture-of-the-first-day-at-school

‘Namely the picture of his first day at school.’ Asserted: ∃f [first schoolday pic f n (f ) ∧ ¬∃x[likes(x, f (x))]] Presupposed: ∃f [first schoolday pic f n (f ) ∧ ¬∃x[likes(x, f (x))]] ⇒ ∃f [picfn (f ) ∧ ¬∃x[likes(x, f (x))]] The restriction that the licit functions in the nämlich -sentence here have to be picturefunctions (and that they have to be relative-functions in (3.61)) is nothing that is particular to wide scope functions, but something that is particular to nämlich -sentences. The nämlich -analysis suggested above predicts also the following effect. (3.70)

a. Peter hat etwas

sehr Schönes gemacht.

Peter has something very nice

made

‘Peter has done something very nice.’ b. Nämlich mal ausgespannt. namely

once relaxed

‘Namely he relaxed.’ Asserted: ∃e[relax (e) ∧ agens(peter , e)] Presupposed: ∃e[relax (e) ∧ agens(peter , e)] ⇒ ∃e[do nice(e) ∧ agens(peter , e)] c. # Nämlich geschnarcht. namely

snored

‘Namely he snored.’ Asserted: ∃e[snore(e) ∧ agent(peter , e)] Presupposed: ∃e[snore(e) ∧ agent(peter , e)] ⇒ ∃e[do nice(e) ∧ agent(peter , e)] (3.70) triggers the presupposition that a relaxing-/snoring-event is also an event of doing something nice, or more precisely: that whenever there is a relaxing/snoring

100


event with agent Peter there is also an event where Peter did something nice. The most plausible assumption to make this dependency work would be to suppose that a relaxing/snoring event is something nice. This presupposition is easy to accommodate in the case of (3.70b), but very hard to accommodate in (3.70c), because it contradicts world knowledge about snoring. Hence, (3.70c) is odd. Consider furthermore the example in (3.71), which makes the resemblance to gapping constructions even more evident. (3.71) Dena hat einem ihrer Pferde ein Leckerli gegeben, nämlich dem Hannes Dena has one

of her horses a

treat

given

namely the Hannes

einen Apfel. an

apple

‘Dena has given one of her horses a treat, namely Hannes an apple.’ Uttering (3.71), the speaker presupposes that an apple is a treat for horses, because Dena has given one of her horses an apple entails Dena has given one of her horses a treat only under the assumption that apples are treats for horses. The following contrast shows that nämlich -constructions (as opposed to other constructions such as sentences introduced by d.h. (i.e.)) are licensed only if the reduced sentence strictly entails the sentence it continues, which is why the relevant notion in (3.67) is ‘asymmetric entailment’ and not simply ‘entailment’. (3.72)

a. #Clarissa hat ihre Eltern eingeladen, nämlich ihren Vater und ihre Clarissa has her parents invited

namely her

father and her

Mutter. mother

‘Clarissa has invited her parents, namely her father and her mother.’ b. Clarissa hat ihre Eltern eingeladen, d.h. ihren Vater und ihre Mutter. Clarissa has her parents invited

i.e. her

father and her mother

‘Clarissa has invited her parents, i.e. her father and her mother.’ As a side remark, let me mention that Umbach (2005) notes, contrary to what is assumed by many authors, that namely-insertions or -continuations in English do not always indicate that a quantificational DP is to be read as referential or specific. They can easily follow truly quantificational sentences, as the following example (from Umbach, 2005, ex. (11)) shows. (3.73) Most students of mine passed the exam, namely those who participated in the final meeting. She analyzes namely as introducing a discourse referent which is identified with a referent that comes about via the abstraction operation as proposed by Kamp and Reyle (1993).30 In this case, it is predicted that namely introduces a referent for the set of students who participated in the final meeting and that this referent is equated with the E-type referent the students who passed the exam. Obviously, Umbach’s proposal for English namely, applied to German nämlich, cannot cover the full range of data 30 For the definition and discussion of this operation and the different possibilities for the introduction of discourse referents see (Kamp and Reyle, 1993) and Section 6.2.1.


101

I just presented, which, of course, it was not designed for in the first place. However, if it should be the case that the analysis presented above for German nämlich can be adopted for English namely, too, it would be possible to account for Umbach’s example (3.73) and thus to account also for the observation that namely-continuations do not necessarily involve a referential/specific/wide scope indefinite preceding them.

Summary In the last subsection, I showed that nämlich -sentences always trigger the presupposition that the complement of nämlich (namely) denotes a subset or an element of some other previously mentioned relevant set. This restriction holds for all nämlich sentences cross-categorically and is thus not a restriction that is particular to functional interpretations. In the preceding two subsections, I have discussed two restrictions that have to be assumed to characterize the possible values for functions: a ‘real’ or ‘natural’ function has to be nameable and informative. These restrictions follow from more general constraints on language use. It is thereby possible to differentiate between a functional wide scope reading and a simple narrow scope reading – in an empirical as well as in a formal manner. Recall example (3.57), which is repeated once again below. (3.74)

a. ↑EIN Bild

von sich,

some picture of

das hatte jeder Schüler mitgebracht.

himself RP had every pupil

brought-along

‘Every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ b. ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] c. Jeder Schüler hatte ein BILD von sich mitgebracht. Every pupil

had a

picture of


‘Every pupil had brought a picture of himself.’ d. ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ bring(x, f (x))]] e. ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃y[picture(y) ∧ of (y, x) ∧ bring(x, y)]] The developed method enables us to distinguish the functional wide scope reading in (3.74b) and the narrow scope reading in (3.74d,e). The function f in (b) (as well as the ones (depending on the pupils) in (d)) can only refer to nameable and informative functions. Hence, only ‘sensible’, non-arbitrary functions can make the formula in (b) true. As for the narrow scope reading in (d), the functions f also only refer to nameable and informative functions. Yet, these functions may vary with the respective value for the pupil and hence an arbitrary assignment of pupils to pictures is possible. It is easy to see that the functional narrow scope representation in (d) is indeed still equivalent to the usual (non-functional) narrow scope representation in (e), even under the additional requirements of nameability and informativity.

3.3.4

Apparent vs. Genuine Narrow Scope

The question I want to raise in this section is whether functional wide scope readings and narrow scope readings are independent of each other and whether there are means

102


to distinguish between the two. So far we have seen that some co-variation readings are not simple narrow scope readings, but instead they represent functional wide scope readings. I called these readings apparent narrow scope readings, because the indefinites involved only appear to take narrow scope. In fact, however, they are wide scope readings that involve functions, even though their values co-vary with the values of some other quantifier. So functional wide scope readings cannot be adequately represented by narrow scope readings (because they are more specific). However, until now we have only seen examples where the functional wide scope reading was more specific than the simple narrow scope reading, cf. e.g. the pupil-picture example (3.45). So it could be that functional readings are, in fact, simply a special case of narrow scope readings. (Just like it was argued that wide scope existential readings could be analyzed as a special case of narrow scope readings in interaction with universal quantifiers.) The interesting question now is whether we can find functional wide scope readings that do not imply the narrow scope readings: are there genuine functional wide scope readings? Relying on findings of (Reniers, 1997; Schwarz, 2001a; Chierchia, 2001), the answer will be positive. Let us investigate the different dependencies systematically.

Do narrow scope readings imply functional wide scope readings? In the preceding sections, we have argued that example (3.45) has a functional wide scope reading and that this reading is indeed more specific than the simple narrow scope one, i.e. we have the following non-entailment. (3.75) ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃y[picture(y) ∧ of (y, x) ∧ bring(x, y)]] 6⇒ ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] We have also seen that the implication would hold if there were no restrictions on the possible values for f . In fact, this was the reason for imposing the restrictions (discussed in the last section) on f in the first place. This shows that the representation in which the indefinite takes simple narrow scope would not be a good means to represent the functional wide scope reading, because the functional wide scope reading is more specific. However, it could still be argued that the functional wide scope reading is not genuine, but simply a special case of the narrow scope reading. As it stands, we can just say that the narrow scope reading does not always imply the functional wide scope reading or that some narrow scope readings cannot be reduced to functional wide scope readings. Some narrow scope readings are genuine. But how about the other direction of the implication?

Do functional wide scope readings imply narrow scope readings? Recall that the examples we discussed above were all examples for which it holds that the functional wide scope reading implied the narrow scope reading. In particular, this is true for (3.45) and (3.47), as we have the following entailment. (3.76) ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] ⇒ ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃y[picture(y) ∧ of (y, x) ∧ bring(x, y)]]


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Schwarz (2001a) (who builds on Chierchia, 2001) explicitly addresses the relationship of functional wide scope readings and narrow scope (or non-widest scope) readings. He also does this under consideration of the fact that most people would assume some kind of restriction on functions (e.g. to natural ones or to ones the speaker has in mind). The question is also indirectly raised in the papers of (Reniers, 1997) and (Chierchia, 2001). Let us start by discussing example (3.77) (which is inspired by an example from (Reniers, 1997)). (Reniers, 1997) does not consider the possibility of restricting the functions to natural ones. But as he simply aims at pointing to problems of the initially proposed choice function approaches, where no distinction between natural functions and other functions is made, this does not weaken his point. (3.77)

a. No mani hates some woman hei went to school with. b. ∃f [woman go to school withfn (f ) ∧ ¬∃x[man(x) ∧ hate(x, f (x))]] c. ¬∃x[man(x) ∧ ∃y[woman x went to school with(y) ∧ hate(x, y)]]

The functional wide scope reading in (3.77b) does not imply the narrow scope reading in (3.77c). Actually, (3.77b) is true in many situations in which (3.77c) is false, which, by the way, already follows from the fact that the necessary conditions for skolemization (due to the scope of the negation) are not met. Reniers illustrates this point by regarding the following model: there are two men m1 , m2 and two women w1 , w2 . All four went to school with each other. m1 hates w1 and there are no other hatingrelations. Obviously, it does not hold that no man hates a woman he went to school with. Hence, (3.77c) is false. But, of course, (3.77b) is true. There is a function f such that no man x hates f (x), which is a woman he went to school with, namely e.g. the function f1 that assigns w2 to m1 and w2 to m2 . This means that there is a model in which the functional wide scope reading (3.77b) is true, but the narrow scope reading (3.77c) is false. In fact, (3.77b) has the same truth conditions as No man hates every woman he went to school with, as only in those cases where this sentence is false (i.e. there is a man that hates every woman he went to school with) can one falsify the formula in (3.77b) (cf. Schwarz, 2001a). It is obvious that these are not the correct truth conditions for (3.77a). Reniers (1997) has used these findings to argue against a functional treatment of wide scope indefinites in downward entailing or negative contexts. I will refer to this problem as the Reniers problem, because, to my knowledge, it was first discussed in (Reniers, 1997). However, Kratzer (1998, 2003) notes correctly that (3.77b) is meant to represent the wide scope reading and not the narrow scope reading. The narrow scope reading can be represented by the ordinary narrow scope construal. But the sentence undoubtedly can receive a functional wide scope reading, in which no man hates some particular kind of woman he went to school with, e.g. his first girlfriend from school. This reading could indeed be represented as in (3.77b) if the interpretation of the function f underlies the usual nameability and informativity restrictions discussed above, i.e. if an instantiation of f by the arbitrary function f1 would be excluded. So there definitely are functional wide scope readings that cannot be conceived of as instances of narrow scope readings. Some functional wide scope readings are genuine. As a last step, let me present an argument for the co-existence of genuine and functional wide/intermediate scope readings, which is in line with the argumentation in

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(Schwarz, 2001a).31 Functional wide (/intermediate) scope readings and narrow scope ones must be independent of each other, because both can be present at the same time, as the following example illustrates. (3.78)

a. Kein Kind hat einem Lehrer alle Lieder vorgesungen. no

child has some teacher all songs sung

‘No child sang all songs to some teacher.’ b. ¬∃x[child (x) ∧ ∃y[teacher (y) ∧ ∀z[song(z) → sing(x, y, z)]]] c. ∃f [teacherfn (f ) ∧ ¬∃x[child (x) ∧ ∀z[song(z) → sing(x, f (x), z)]]] (3.78a) has an intermediate scope reading, where some teacher takes wide scope over all songs, but narrower scope than no child. This reading is indicated in (3.78b): for no child there is one particular teacher such that the child sang all songs to this teacher. However, the sentence also has the functional reading in (3.78c), which says that no child sang all songs to a certain type of teacher, say his math-teacher. In this reading, there can be children that sang all songs to one particular teacher as long as it is not the math-teacher. Both readings are easily available. The fact that sentences such as (3.78a) have these two readings provides evidence that natural language supports both functional (wide scope) readings and non-functional genuine intermediate scope readings. Together with the fact that neither the functional wide scope reading nor the narrow scope readings are special cases of the other, we can conclude that a representation mechanism that has to account for all different sorts of readings must be able to represent both kinds: functional wide scope and genuine narrow/non-wide scope readings. Sentences containing genuine functional expressions such as e.g. ein Bild von sich (some picture of himself ) in (3.45) should be represented by functional construals and non-functional co-variation readings that are not triggered by functional expressions should be represented by means of ordinary scope construals. These readings should not be derived via functions.

3.4 Conclusion We have seen that specificity is a highly controversial term. As I have outlined, I follow Ioup’s view of specificity, which ties specificity to the existence of opaque operators. I pointed out that my main aim here is not to account for specific readings of indefinites, but rather to account for (exceptional) wide scope readings in purely transparent contexts. The aim of this chapter was a very moderate one: to set the stage for my central object of investigation. Therefore, I had to outline my view of specificity and set it apart from ordinary wide scope readings. I furthermore argued that not only has one to differentiate between specificity and wide scope, but also contrast other apparent wide scope phenomena with genuine wide scope. We have 31 However, (Schwarz, 2001a) argues that in English only a certain -indefinites allow for both a genuine wide scope and a functional interpretation, whereas ordinary indefinites with a and some do not. At least in German this seems to be different. Here all indefinites seem to allow for a functional (re)interpretation. The account I will present predicts that the indefinite einem Lehrer (some teacher) in (3.78) can be reinterpreted as einem Lehrer von ihm (some teacher of his), where the pronoun is bound by kein Kind (no child), and hence triggers a functional interpretation.


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also encountered the reverse picture, namely apparent narrow scope readings, which are, in fact, functional wide scope readings. I furthermore differentiated between slim and emphatic indefinites. The latter obtain a heavy accent on the determiner in German. Let me sum up my findings concerning (apparent) wide scope and the relevance of slim and emphatic appearances: 1. Slim indefinites allow for specific readings, explainable via some specificity interpretation mechanism, usually equivalent to wide scope over the involved opaque operator (see e.g. (3.1)). 2. Some sentences allow for non-variation (apparent and non-genuine wide scope) readings, which eventually turn out to be only a special case of the narrow scope readings. These sentences may contain slim indefinites (see (3.25) vs. (3.26)). 3. Some apparent wide scope readings can be conceived of as emerging from a referential interpretation or implicit domain restriction. These sentences may contain slim indefinites, too (see examples (3.29b,c), (3.35)). 4. Some sentences only allow for non-variation readings with emphatic indefinites, but not with the slim variants. I understand these to be instances of genuine wide scope readings (see examples (3.29a) vs. (3.30) and (3.33b) vs. (3.37b)). From what has been said so far it is obvious that it is important to distinguish between specific and apparent wide scope readings on the one side and genuine wide scope ones on the other. It might be the case that all apparent wide scope readings are, in fact, instances of specific readings. It is often argued (cf. e.g. Yeom, 1998; Schwarzschild, 2002) that the speaker must know the respective referent in order to license a referential/singleton set reading. Possibly, the indefinite is interpreted specifically with respect to a tacit epistemic operator, such as I know, in these cases. This makes it plausible that these two cases, too, can be seen as specific readings. We have seen that there are not only apparent wide scope readings, but also apparent narrow scope ones: co-variation readings, where the indefinite under discussion varies with the values of some other quantifier. I argued that it is therefore important to distinguish between functional wide scope and genuine narrow scope and that both kinds of readings actually exist. To account for the functional wide scope readings correctly, the possible domain for the interpretation of functions has to be restricted to comprise only nameable and informative functions. Both restrictions are derivable from more general constraints on language use and thus do not have to be stipulated. We have thus found evidence for genuine wide scope as well as for genuine narrow scope. Both cannot be reduced to some other phenomenon. Scope phenomena are real. In the remainder of this book, I will be mainly concerned with exceptional wide scope readings of indefinites. I will show that these readings are genuine wide scope readings and not just apparent ones. They can be functional, though, if functional expressions are involved. I will account for these functional wide scope readings also. Furthermore, it will be shown that some indefinites take exceptional wide intermediate scope, i.e. they scope out of syntactic islands, but yet take narrower scope than some other

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quantifier. These co-variation readings will again be shown to be genuine scope readings, i.e. not reducible to some kind of functional reading. To show this, I will make use of the slim/emphatic-distinction introduced in this chapter. As we have seen, slim indefinites often support apparent, but not genuine wide scope readings, whereas emphatic indefinites support ‘real’ wide scope. The decisive scenario to test for ‘real’ exceptional wide scope will be the one developed in this chapter. We investigate sentences that do not allow for non-variation readings with slim indefinites, but do with emphatic ones. In these cases, it is very likely that we are actually examining ‘real’ wide scope readings and not apparent wide scope readings such as specific readings or extreme domain restriction readings. I will introduce my account for the interpretation of the relevant type of indefinites in Chapter 5 and spell out the formal details in Chapter 6. Let me anticipate my results at this point. I assume that emphatic indefinites are topical.32 In other words, the emphatic realization of an indefinite is a way of topic-marking it. The mechanism that I propose for the interpretation of these topical indefinites – let’s call this mechanism M – evokes a genuine wide scope interpretation for them. Emphatic indefinites, being topical and thus subject to M, then take (genuine) wide scope. But note that this does not imply that only emphatic indefinites can take (genuine) wide scope. First, there are certainly other ways of topic-marking, as illustrated in the preceding chapter. Second, it might be the case that a DP does not have to be explicitly marked as topical to be interpreted as topic, or there might exist yet unidentified possibilities of topic-marking. And third, there might be mechanisms other than M that can evoke scope inversion, e.g. local scope inversion mechanisms such as Quantifier Raising. However, one purpose of this chapter was to develop a test that guarantees that an indefinite under investigation supports a genuine (as opposed to an apparent) wide scope reading.

32 This claim does not hold in the generality with which it is stated here. We will encounter putative counterexamples in Chapter 5 and I will give the final formulation of my claim at that point.

Chapter 4

Exceptional Wide Scope 4.1 Scope Islands As could be seen in the preceding chapter, indefinites can take scope wider than operators that c-command them at the surface. I repeat example (3.24a) below as (4.1a). (4.1b) gives an example of a strong quantifier that is c-commanded by an indefinite. (4.1)

a. Every student has read some book that Anne recommended. [∀ ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ ∀] b. Some student has read every book that Anne recommended. [∃ ≻ ∀] [∀ ≻ ∃]

Both (4.1a) and (4.1b) are ambiguous between a scope reading that corresponds to the c-command relations at the surface and one where the embedded quantifier takes scope over the one that c-commands it. The (simplified) readings for (4.1a,b) are given in (4.2a,b), respectively. (4.2)

a. 1. ∀x[student(x) → ∃y[recom book (anne, y) ∧ read(x, y)]] 2. ∃y[recom book (anne, y) ∧ ∀x[student(x) → read(x, y)]] b. 1. ∃x[student(x) ∧ ∀y[recom book (anne, y) → read(x, y)]] 2. ∀y[recom book (anne, y) → ∃x[student(x) ∧ read(x, y)]]

Whether (4.1b) actually has an inverse reading under ‘neutral’ intonation is controversial (see references in Pafel 2005 for the two different views). What is uncontroversial, is that (4.1b) can have an inverse reading when a special rise-fall-contour is realized on the sentence, where the rising tone appears on some and the falling one on every (cf. Jackendoff 1972 on scope inversion of quantifiers and negation). Disregarding intonation, we can see that both sentences allow for two different readings. In this respect it plays no role whether the c-commanded DP is an indefinite as in (4.1a) or a strong quantifier as in (4.1b). Both allow for an inverse scope reading. C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 4,

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The situation changes if we look at the behavior of indefinites and strong quantifiers that are embedded in scope islands (cf. e.g. Ruys, 1992; Reinhart, 1997; Szabolcsi, 1997b; Winter, 1997). (4.3)

a. Anne has read every book that some teacher recommended. [∀ ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ ∀] b. Anne has read some book that every teacher recommended. [∃ ≻ ∀] ∗ [∀ ≻ ∃]

In (4.3a,b), an indefinite and a strong quantifier are each embedded in a relative clause. Relative clauses are regarded as syntactic islands, which means that overt extraction from them is prohibited. As syntactic islands are also always scope islands, the relative clause constitutes a scope island. Consequently, (4.3b) is indeed unambiguous and does not support a wide scope reading for the quantifier every teacher, i.e. the strong quantifier cannot take scope out of the relative clause island. The sentence only has the reading that corresponds to the surface c-command relations, where the indefinite takes scope over the universal quantifier. It then means that Anne has read some particular book that has the property that it has been recommended by every teacher. The inverse scope reading is not possible, and even intonation cannot help to make it available. (4.3b) cannot mean: for every teacher it holds that Anne read some book that he recommended. The unavailability of an inverse scope reading of a quantifier that is embedded in a syntactic island is expected if inverse scope is derived via QR or an alternative mechanism that obeys syntactic constraints. It is surprising that (4.3a) is ambiguous and does allow for a wide scope reading of the indefinite some teacher, even though this indefinite is embedded in the same relative clause-island as the universal in (4.3b). (4.3a) has two readings, a wide scope and a narrow scope reading for the indefinite. It can mean that Anne has read every book that has the property of having been recommended by a teacher. Or it can mean that there is some particular teacher such that Anne has read every book that he recommended. Hence, indefinites seem to allow for exceptional wide scope. To derive this inverse scope reading via QR, one would have to assume island-free QR. This assumption would be highly undesirable because QR, being a syntactic mechanism, should obey syntactic constraints. And even if one assumed island-free QR, it would have to be restricted to certain quantifiers, because (4.3b) does not allow for a wide scope reading. If the two readings of (4.3a) actually are different scope readings of the indefinite, the only plausible way to explain the wide scope reading is to assume a scope-shifting mechanism that does not obey syntactic constraints. And indeed, as pointed out in the preceding chapter, my mechanism M interprets topical DPs, which suggests that M is subject to information-structural constraints rather than syntax. There are other scope islands that do not allow embedded quantifiers to take scope out of them in the general case, but allow for scope extraction of indefinites, for instance if -clauses. The following example (based on an example from Ruys (1992)) illustrates this. (4.4)

a. If some relative of Paul dies, Paul will inherit a fortune. [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ]

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b. If every relative of Paul dies, Paul will inherit a fortune. [if ≻ ∀] ∗ [∀ ≻ if ] While (4.4a) can be interpreted both in a wide scope and a narrow scope reading of the indefinite, (4.4b) only has a narrow scope reading. In other words, (4.4a) has a wide scope reading saying that there is one specific relative of Paul, say Uncle Mike, who is such that if he dies, Paul will inherit a fortune. Should other relatives of Paul die, he may not inherit anything. The narrow scope reading of (4.4a) is clearly different from its wide scope reading. Here, it suffices that just any relative of Paul dies and he inherits a fortune. While (4.4a) is ambiguous, (4.4b) only supports the narrow scope reading, which says that all relatives of Paul have to die to make him inherit a fortune. The sentence does not have a wide scope reading, which would be the following: for every relative of Paul it holds that if he dies, Paul will inherit a fortune. In this case, the death of only one relative would make Paul a rich man. Let me note in passing that there are different possibilities to treat natural language conditionals, among which the most unattractive one is probably to treat them as material implications, i.e. just like the first order logical operation ‘→’. However, in those cases where a treatment of the conditional under discussion as material implication does not lead to different results than a more sophisticated treatment I will assume that conditionals could be safely treated as material implications – simply because it is the easiest among all options. Yet, we will also have to face cases where the conditionals cannot be treated in this simplistic manner. Consider e.g. the following example from (King, 1988, p. 426). (4.5) If I jump out the window, I won’t fall on the ground. Intuitively, the sentence is not true if uttered in our world, whether the speaker actually jumps out of the window or not. This is so because we actually know that the speaker would fall on the ground if she jumped out the window. Yet, the sentence would come out as true if the conditional is treated as a material implication and the speaker does not actually jump out of the window. In this case, the antecedent of the implication is false and hence the entire formula is true. Different strategies have been developed to get out of this dilemma. The most famous ones are Robert Stalnaker’s and David Lewis’ accounts of conditionals within the framework of possible world semantics. The core idea of Stalnaker’s closest world semantics is the following: a conditional is true if its consequent is true in a world w′ , which is most like the actual world w except that the antecedent is true in w′ . It follows directly that (4.5) is not true in our world: to make the sentence true it would be necessary that in a world w′ which is like our actual world except that the speaker jumps out of the window it would be true that she does not fall on the ground. As this is implausible, the sentence does not come out as true just because the speaker does not jump out of the window, as it would under material implication. The reader is asked to keep this Stalnakerian treatment of conditionals in mind for subsequent discussion. Not only is the assumption of island-free QR conceptually highly problematic because a syntactic mechanism ignores syntactic islands, there is also an empirical problem

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with such an assumption. If wide scope readings of plural quantifiers were derived via such a mechanism, this would predict readings which, in fact, do not exist.1 (4.6)

a. If three relatives of his die Paul will inherit a fortune. b. [three relatives of Paul]i [IF ti die THEN Paul will inherit a fortune] c. λP [|rel of paul ∩ P | ≥ 3](λx[die(x) → inherit(paul )]) ≡ |rel of paul ∩ λx[die(x) → inherit(paul )]| ≥ 3

If three relatives of Paul is interpreted as a GQ (of type hhe, ti, ti), the movement operation QR – applied to a GQ – would leave behind a trace of type e (see Heim and Kratzer, 1998). This would yield the wide scope representation sketched in (4.6b) and derived in (4.6c). But this is not a reading of (4.6a). The representation in (4.6c) can be paraphrased as: three relatives of Paul are such that if any one of them dies Paul will inherit a fortune. This is a distributive wide scope reading, which does not exist for this sentence. However, the sentence does have a collective wide scope reading, which translates as follows: there are three relatives of Paul, and if they all die Paul will inherit a fortune. This reading cannot be obtained via a QR mechanism under the assumption that QR applies only within scope islands. As QR is taken to be a syntactic movement operation (that applies at LF), it directly follows that this movement operation has to respect syntactic islands. If -clauses constitute islands – for covert and for overt movement alike – without any doubt. Hence, even if there was a variant of QR that could derive wide scope collective readings via LF-movement, such an operation would not be expected to apply in the case of (4.6), as the indefinite is embedded inside an if -clause island. All in all, an analysis of (4.6) that involves a covert movement operation such as QR would have to face two problems: 1. there is a wide scope collective reading that cannot be derived, because QR is a syntactic mechansism that respects islands, and 2. even if one assumed some kind of island-disregarding movement operation, a distributive wide scope reading is not available and would have to be blocked. Concerning 2., blocking the wide scope distributive reading while allowing for a collective one at the same time is not possible without further stipulations, as usually predicates that have been derived by way of having moved a constituent away via QR can be distributed over (cf. Reinhart, 1997 for intensive discussion). The observation that indefinites which take exceptional wide scope out of syntactic islands do not allow for wide scope distributive readings was first made by Eddy Ruys and is therefore often referred to as the Ruys observation. However, this observation has been questioned from time to time (see Abusch, 1994; Matthewson, 1999; Geurts, 2002; Kempson and Meyer-Viol, 2004; Mart´ı, 2005).2 Consider the following example (from Hans-Martin Gärtner, p.c.). 1 To keep things simple, I assume a very simple analysis of three N here, which will not be the final one. Furthermore, in line with most other authors, I adopt the view (here and in the more sophisticated analysis to be presented below) that bare numeral DPs such as three N denote the GQ at least three N. They receive the exactly-reading by extra-semantic mechanisms such as implicatures. 2 In fact, it has also been questioned by Ruys himself in (Ruys, 2003) – but not on empirical grounds as in the above-mentioned approaches, but on theoretical grounds. Ruys remarks that actually the distributive wide scope reading of e.g. (4.6a) entails the collective wide scope reading and is thus more specific than that reading. In other words, the distributive wide scope reading would be a special case of the collective wide scope reading, which means that it cannot be proven not to exist.

CHAPTER 4. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE (4.7)

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a. Wenn zwei Spielstellungen eintreten, ist das Schachspiel beendet. if

two configurations

occur

is the chess game

finished

‘Two configurations terminate a chess game.’ b. Nämlich Schachmatt oder Remis. namely

checkmate

or

draw

‘Namely checkmate or draw.’ (4.7a) can only be interpreted to say that either checkmate or draw finishes a chess game. This is, of course, a wide scope distributive reading, which has been argued not to exist by Ruys (1992) and others. Interestingly, wide scope distributive readings involve focal rather than topical stress on the determiner.3 In other words, (4.7a) in the relevant reading is particularly well suited as an answer to Wieviele Spielstellungen können ein Schachspiel beenden? (How many configurations terminate a chess game?). With such a context question, a wide scope distributive reading can also occur with the original example from Ruys (4.6a), which is usually assumed not to support such a reading (but see Kempson and Meyer-Viol 2004 for a different view). (4.8)

a. How many relatives will bequeath Paul a fortune if they die? b. If THREE relatives of Paul die, Paul will inherit a fortune.

So it seems that exceptional wide scope readings are possible with focal, i.e. nontopical, DPs also. But then they support a distributive wide scope reading. However, as has been shown by Winter (1997), wide scope distributivity is usually impossible even if world knowledge makes a collective reading highly unlikely and would therefore strongly support a distributive wide scope reading. The following examples are taken from (Winter, 1997, ex. (32), (33), pp. 416–17.). (4.9)

a.

#

If three women gave birth to John then he has a nice mother.

b.

#

Every artist who was born in three cities became famous.

(4.9a) can only be understood as saying that John has a nice mother if he had three mothers at the same time, which contradicts our world knowledge. Something similar holds for (4.9b), which seems to say that we make a statement only about those artists that were born in three cities simultaneously. As we know that a human being can only be born in one place, the sentence sounds odd. However, if wide scope distributivity were allowed, the sentences could have fully coherent readings, namely (a) that there are three women such that if one of them was the mother of John, he would have a nice mother and (b) that every artist who was born in one of three cities became famous. World knowledge would definitely support these readings. The fact that they are yet not available strongly suggests that a mechanism that would derive those readings should not be assumed, i.e. wide QR and all alike mechanisms must be prohibited. These data require that we should stick to the view that wide scope distributive readings must be excluded, and that counterexamples such as (4.7a) are the exception to the 3 This

was suggested to me by Manfred Krifka.

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rule and have to be accounted for by other means. Unfortunately, I have no concrete suggestion for what it might be that distinguishes (4.7a) from the sentences in (4.9).4

4.2 The Class of Wide Scope Quantifiers Going back to examples (4.3) and (4.4), we see a clear difference between strong quantifiers and indefinites embedded in scope islands. While indefinites seem to be able to escape these islands, strong quantifiers cannot. However, the ability to take exceptional wide scope out of islands is not a property of the entire class of weak quantifiers. Only a certain subclass of the weak quantifiers can take exceptional wide scope (cf. Kamp and Reyle, 1993; Reinhart, 1997; Szabolcsi, 1997b). The following enumeration illustrates the class of indefinites that take exceptional wide scope and its complement class. (4.10)

a. Clarissa will be surprised if some horse falls ill. [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ] b. Clarissa will be surprised if some/ three / several horses fall ill. [if ≻ some/3/several ] [some/3/several ≻ if ] c. Clarissa will be surprised if at least three / more than two / almost all horses fall ill. [if ≻ ≥ 3/> 2/alm ∀] ?? [≥ 3/> 2/alm ∀ ≻ if ] d. Clarissa will be surprised if exactly three horses fall ill. [if ≻ = 3] ?? [= 3 ≻ if ] e. Clarissa will be surprised if no horse falls ill. [if ≻ ¬∃] ∗ [¬∃ ≻ if ] f. Clarissa will be surprised if at most three horses / few horses fall ill. [if ≻ ≤ 3/few ] ∗ [≤ 3/few ≻ if ]

Monotone decreasing (4.10e,f) and non-monotonic quantifiers (4.10d) are excluded from an exceptional wide scope interpretation. But note that there is an acceptability difference here: it seems entirely impossible to interpret the monotone decreasing quantifiers in (e)/(f) with scope over the if -clause, whereas an inverse scope reading of non-monotonic quantifiers in (d) and also of the monotone increasing ones in (c) is not easily available, but yet not as strictly excluded as for the cases (e) and (f). Clarissa will be surprised if few horses fall ill can by no means express that there are few horses such that Clarissa will be surprised if they fall ill. It can only mean that Clarissa will be surprised if few horses (whatever horses that may be) fall ill. The same holds, mutatis mutandis, for Clarissa will be surprised if exactly three horses fall ill. The sentence does not support a wide scope reading for exactly three horses, although such a reading might be not as strictly excluded as in the case of the monotone decreasing quantifiers in (e)/(f). The class of monotone increasing quantifiers behaves inconsistently. As the contrast between three in (b) and at least three and more than two in (c) shows, 4 Malte Zimmermann suggested to me that the decisive difference might be that (4.7a) is a generic sentence, where das Schachspiel (the chess game) is not interpreted as referring to one concrete game, but rather denotes chess games in general.


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only a subclass of the monotone increasing quantifiers can actually take exceptional wide scope. This is particularly puzzling if one considers that three, at least three, and more than two are typically assumed to have the same semantics (but see Kay, 1992; Krifka, 1999; Hackl, 2000; Geurts and Nouwen, 2007; Krifka, 2005 for a different view). Note that a wide scope reading is available in the case of at least three horses, but this reading is not one where the entire GQ takes wide scope. Consider (4.11) below. (4.11) Clarissa will be surprised if at least three horses fall ill. The sentence does not have a wide scope reading for at least three horses, which would be the following: there is a set of at least three horses, i.e. a particular set of three, four, five, etc. horses, such that Clarissa will be surprised if exactly those horses contained in the particular set fall ill. But interestingly, the sentence is still ambiguous. It has the expected narrow scope reading and another reading, that can be paraphrased as follows: there is a particular set of three horses such that Clarissa will be surprised if at least the three horses contained in this set fall ill. This reading is not a genuine wide scope reading of at least three horses, which would allow for a particular set of four or five horses that can cause Clarissa to be surprised if they fall ill. Instead, the wide scope reading that (4.11) exhibits must come about by other means than simple wide scope of the involved quantifier. In this case at least has to be interpreted as an operator that is applied to the GQ corresponding to three horses. This is in line with Krifka (1999), where at least is interpreted as a focus-sensitive operator that can combine syntactically with all different kinds of categories. The GQ three horses alone then takes wide scope over the if -clause, and the at least-operator stays in its original position inside the if -clause.5 These assumptions can account for the wide scope reading that is attested for the sentence. Note that a similar wide scope interpretation of an embedded GQ is not available for the following sentence. (4.12) Clarissa will be surprised if more than two horses fall ill. The unavailability of this reading as opposed to the availability of such a reading for (4.11) can be traced back to the following contrast. (4.13)

a. At least Paul came. b. ∗ More than Paul came. c. At least my relatives came. d. ?? More than my relatives came.

The operator more than seems to be different in nature from at least. In particular, it cannot be applied to full DPs as easily (cf. also Geurts and Nouwen, 2007 for this observation).6 In (4.11), it can be assumed that three horses is interpreted 5 Note that Krifka assumes an adjectival treatment of numerals such as three and hence does not analyze three horses as a GQ, but as a set of plural individuals, each comprising three horses. For my concerns here, I assume that three horses has the usual GQ semantics. 6 But see (Krifka, 1999, ex. (16b)) for examples where it can:

(4.14) The aggressors wanted more than the southern province. Similar examples can be found in (Geurts and Nouwen, 2007). Although it is puzzling what distinguishes (4.14) and (4.13b,d), (4.13) shows clearly that there is a crucial difference between at least and more than concerning their combinatoric possibilities.

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as a GQ and at least is applied to it. But this is not a viable option if at least three is replaced by more than two, because more than cannot be applied to the full DP two horses in this case. In the first case, the structure to be interpreted would be the following: at least(three horses). In the second case it would be: (more than(three))(horses). The GQ three horses therefore can take wide scope on its own in (4.11), but this option is excluded in (4.12) as there is no such GQ.7 For the present concerns however, at least n N and more than n N behave alike: Both do not allow for genuine wide scope in the sense that the entire GQ at least n N /more than n N takes wide scope over the if -clause. The only quantifiers that can take exceptional wide scope (which I dubbed the wide scope quantifiers/indefinites) are the ones in (4.10a,b), i.e. singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites, several N, and plural some N.8 The findings are the same for German (and other languages), where also bare numeral indefinites, singular indefinites and einige (several) as well as manche (≈ some) allow for exceptional wide scope. The list is probably not exhaustive. Reinhart (1997), de Swart (1999), Szabolcsi (1997b), and Fodor and Sag (1982) for example also regard many N as a wide scope/referential quantifier. (Reinhart, 1997, p. 339, ex. (6c)) gives the following example: (4.15) All students believe anything that many teachers say. [∀ ≻ many] [many ≻ ∀]

However, many English native speakers do not get exceptional wide scope readings with many. Even for those speakers who accept the wide-scope reading in (4.15), the wide scope reading disappears if anything is replaced by everything.9 In German it is without any doubt that viele N (many N) cannot receive exceptional wide scope. (4.16) Alle Studenten glauben alles, all

students

was viele Lehrer sagen.

believe everything what many teachers say

[∀ ≻ many] ∗ [many ≻ ∀]

The GQ many N seems to be unable to take exceptional wide scope in the general case. I will not discuss this quantifier any further, because the exact formulation of its semantics, which would have to be settled to discuss its wide scope behavior, is still a highly disputed matter (see among many others Partee, 1988; Herburger, 2000; Cohen, 2001).

7 The explanation given in Geurts and Nouwen (2007) for the missing ‘specificity’ reading of examples along the lines of (4.12) as opposed to (4.11) is somewhat similar to the one sketched here. They argue that superlative operators such as at least are modal operators and that these can be applied to quantifiers, whereas comparative operators such as more than are simply focus-sensitive operators that can only be applied to predicates. As predicates cannot receive a specific interpretation, (4.12) cannot be analyzed along similar lines as (4.11). In other words, the underlying reason for a missing wide scope reading in (4.12) is that there simply is no GQ that more than is applied to and that could be interpreted as taking wide scope. 8 See e.g. (Winter, 1997) and (Ludlow and Neale, 1991) for this characterization of wide scope indefinites, especially for the claim that several is among the wide scope takers. 9 I thank Craig Thiersch for pointing this out to me.


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4.3 Genuine vs. Apparent Exceptional Wide Scope Similar to the case of local scope inversion, one can also find examples of indefinites embedded in a syntactic island (in (4.17) and (4.18) a relative clause), where it can be argued that the indefinite must take genuine wide scope, i.e. where the wide scope reading cannot straightforwardly be explained away as an instance of a specific or referential reading or via implicit extreme domain restriction. Here again, we have to differentiate between the slim and the emphatic version of the indefinite. Consider the following example in German. (4.17)

a. Ich lese grundsätzlich keine Bücher, die von I

read generally

no

books

#

einem AUtor /

that from an

author /

↑EInem Autor geschrieben wurden. some

author written

were

‘I read no books that are written by an/some particular author.’ b. Nämlich die von Jane Austen. (Namely those from Jane Austen.) In the slim variant, the sentence is odd. This is due to the fact that the solely available narrow scope reading of the indefinite is odd, because the relative clause seems superfluous, and the sentence simply means that the speaker reads no books at all. The emphatic variant is felicitous, however, because a non-variation reading becomes available, which then says that there is a specific author of whom the speaker reads no books. The sentence with the emphatic indefinite could be followed by (4.17b) and would be perfectly acceptable in this context. The following example reveals the same pattern. The slim indefinite allows only for a co-variation reading, whereas the emphatic version makes a non-variation reading available. (4.18)

a. Professor Müller bevorzugt

jeden Doktoranden, der von

Professor Müller gives-preference every PhD student

UNi

/ ↑EIner Uni

university / some

#

einer

who from a

kommt.

university comes

‘Professor Müller gives preference to every PhD student who comes from a/some particular university.’ b. Nämlich von der Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. (Namely from Humboldt University in Berlin.) In the slim version, the sentence in (4.18a) is odd. This is due to the fact that the indefinite receives narrow scope. Because we know that every PhD student must come from a university, in the narrow scope reading of the indefinite the relative clause seems superfluous and the sentence sounds odd. However, if the indefinite is emphatic, the sentence receives an exceptional wide scope reading saying that there is a particular university (say, the Humboldt University) such that every professor gives preference to every PhD student who comes from there. This wide scope reading is possible, although the indefinite is embedded in the syntactic island constituted by the relative clause. In other words, there is a non-variation reading, where the university does not

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vary with the PhD students, when the indefinite is emphatic. This reading is enforced by the continuation in (4.18b), which is only felicitous with the emphatic version of (a), but not with the slim one. As argued in the preceding chapter, the emphatic indefinite most likely takes genuine wide scope here and the non-variation reading is not just an illusion that results from some specificity/referentiality/domain restriction mechanism. (4.17) and (4.18) then show that emphatic indefinites in German can also take exceptional wide scope out of syntactic islands and do not just support local scope inversion. The following example illustrates the same point, this time for German and English.10 (4.19)

a. Wenn ↑EIN Dozent zur

Party kommt, gehe ich sofort

if

some lecturer to-the party comes, go ∗ wieder. [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ] again

I

immediately

‘If some lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately.’ b. Wenn ein DoZENT zur Party kommt, gehe ich sofort if

a

wieder.

lecturer to-the party comes, go [if ≻ ∃] ∗ [∃ ≻ if ]

I

immediately

again

‘If a lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately.’ c. If some lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately. ?

[if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ]

d. If a lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately. [if ≻ ∃] ∗ [∃ ≻ if ]

Again, the same picture as above emerges. The sentences in (4.19a) and (4.19c) with emphatic indefinites receive a wide scope reading for the indefinite, whereas (4.19b) and (4.19d) with slim indefinites have to be interpreted with narrow scope. Sentences (b) and (d) can only be read to mean that the speaker is a person that likes lecturer-free parties only. As soon as a lecturer comes, the speaker leaves. As mentioned before, I have no explanation why the slim indefinites in (b) and (d) do not allow for apparent wide scope via domain restriction or some other mechanism. We simply observe that they do not receive such a reading. And again, minimal variants of them with heavier NP-restrictions – at least marginally – do. (4.20)

a. Wenn ↑EIN Dozent von mir zur if

sofort

some lecturer of

wieder.

Party kommt, gehe ich

mine to-the party comes, go ∗ [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ]

I

immediately again

‘If some lecturer of mine comes to the party, I will leave immediately.’ 10 Note that here, a heavy accent on the determiner also disambiguates the English examples towards a wide scope interpretation. This is different from the cases we encountered in Chapter 3. There, stress on the determiner in English often brought the narrow scope reading to the fore. In the cases here, the accent on the determiner evokes a wide scope reading. (Kratzer, 1998, p. 192, footnote 8) notes that the rise on the determiner [of wide scope indefinites, CE] is an instance of a L*+H pitch accent followed by a H* pitch accent and a L boundary tone on the noun and attributes this insight to Lisa Selkirk.

CHAPTER 4. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE b. Wenn ein DoZENT von mir zur if

a

wieder.

117 Party kommt, gehe ich sofort

lecturer of mine to-the party comes, go [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ]

I

immediately

again

‘If some lecturer of mine comes to the party, I will leave immediately.’ c. If some lecturer of mine comes to the party, I will leave immediately. ?

[if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ]

d. If a lecturer of mine comes to the party, I will leave immediately. [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ]

(4.20b,d) seem to allow for an apparent wide scope reading, which is probably a referential reading or a reading that comes about via implicit domain restriction. This option to interpret the DP ein Dozent von mir (a lecturer of mine) as referential seems to be due to the PP von mir (of mine), which is absent in (4.19). The exact source for the apparent wide scope reading in (4.20) and the question why (4.19) does not allow for such a reading will not be investigated further.11 What matters is the fact that (4.19a,c) plausibly allow for genuine wide scope with emphatic indefinites, something that we cannot guarantee for (4.20a,c), as here an apparent wide scope reading seems to interfere. We can see very clearly at this point why it is important to differentiate between specific, referential, and extremely domain-restricted readings on the one hand and genuine wide scope readings on the other. In this and in the preceding chapter, we have encountered examples of specific/referential/extremely domain-restricted slim indefinites that have been embedded in a scope island (example (4.20b,d) and also (3.3), where the indefinite is embedded in a finite clause that can be regarded as scope island12 ). Although these sentences seem to realize exceptional wide scope readings at first sight, it can be argued that, in fact, they do not. Hence, these examples would not necessitate the assumption of a scope mechanism that disobeys usual scope constraints and syntactic island constraints. But in this chapter we have encountered examples of genuine wide scope readings of (emphatic) indefinites (cf. examples (4.17), (4.18), and (4.19)). The examples suggest very strongly that the indefinites involved are to be analyzed as actually taking exceptional wide scope via a scope-shifting mechanism. In other words, we have established that a scope-shifting mechanism that disregards syntactic islands is needed. The previously mentioned mechanism M would be such a scope-shifting mechanism that does not obey syntactic constraints. Of course, this is a very exceptional case. Let us therefore assume that except for M, the grammatical system contains only scope mechanisms which obey syntactic constraints. The only 11 The PP von mir (of mine) makes the DP heavier and, as pointed out e.g. by (Fodor and Sag, 1982), this makes it easier to interpret the indefinite referentially. Furthermore, it is possible that the entire DP is turned into a presuppositional one by the PP-attachment so that the existence of at least one lecturer of mine is presupposed. This presupposition might be the reason for the illusion of a wide scope reading in (4.20) (see also [Section 6]Kratzer, 1998, who argues that existential presuppositions associated with quantificational DPs are responsible for (intermediate) wide scope readings in attitude contexts). 12 If the reader does not agree that the finite clause complement of believes constitutes a scope island in these examples, the verb can be substituted by holds the belief in English and ist der Meinung in German. The finite clause complement of the NPs in these complex VPs constitutes a syntactic island and therefore also a scope island without any doubt. All relevant facts concerning the readings of the sentences are preserved.

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way (genuine) exceptional wide scope can come about then is via M, which, as has briefly been pointed at in Section 3.4, only applies to topical indefinites. Hence, only topical indefinites are expected to allow for genuine exceptional wide scope. In the following sections I will discuss alternative approaches that have been put forward to account for exceptional wide scope phenomena.

4.4 Approaches Relying on Speaker’s Reference Section 3.2 has shown that one source for apparent wide scope is speaker’s reference. The speaker can utter an indefinite in order to refer to a particular individual/set she has in mind. The speaker uses an indefinite instead of a name or a definite because she assumes that there is a speaker-hearer asymmetry. She knows the individual she wants to refer to, but the hearer does not. While I have shown that such ‘referential readings’ should not be considered real scope readings, many other authors do not differentiate between genuine and apparent wide scope and propose to account for exceptional wide scope via speaker’s reference.

4.4.1

Fodor and Sag (1982)

Originally, it was proposed by Fodor and Sag (1982) that the extraordinary behavior of indefinites can best be captured by the assumption that indefinites are ambiguous between a referential and a quantificational reading (as has been mentioned in Section 3.2.1 above). In their approach, (apparent) wide scope readings are not regarded as scope phenomena, but simply as instances of referential readings. An indefinite such as a student of mine then has two lexical meanings: one which corresponds to the usual quantifier meaning λP [∃x[student(x) ∧ of (x, me) ∧ P (x)]] and one where it refers to some specific individual, which is a student of the speaker. When the indefinite is interpreted as a quantifier, it has all the properties of a quantifier, i.e. in particular the property that its scope is clause-bound. When the indefinite is interpreted referentially, it behaves just like a referential item such as the name Peter being interpreted as the constant peter . The motivation for this view comes from data as in (4.21) (taken from Fodor and Sag, 1982, p. 374). (4.21) Each teacher overheard the rumor that a student of mine had been called before the dean. Fodor and Sag (1982) report that example (4.21) only has two readings, a narrow scope and an apparent wide scope reading for a student of mine. The apparent wide scope reading can be paraphrased as follows: there is a specific student of the speaker, say Peter, and every teacher overheard the rumor that this student Peter had been called before the dean. The narrow scope reading reads as follows: every teacher overheard the rumor that some student of the speaker or other had been called before the dean. But the sentence arguably lacks an intermediate scope reading. This reading would be expected, if indefinites could just freely violate scope constraints. That is because there is another possible scope position where a student of mine could be interpreted,


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namely below the quantifier every teacher, but above the DP the rumor. The reading of this scope configuration would be the following: for every teacher there is a possibly different student of the speaker such that the teacher overheard the rumor that this student had been called before the dean. This reading could be called an exceptional wide intermediate scope reading because the indefinite would still take unexpected exceptional wide scope out of its syntactic island (the finite clause complement of the rumor), but not widest scope over each teacher. It is this missing intermediate reading that led Fodor and Sag to the view that apparent exceptional wide scope is in fact not a scope phenomenon. However, example (4.21) is problematic for various reasons, one of them being that the rumor that constitutes an opaque context, which leads to the complication that specific and unspecific readings interfere with ordinary narrow and wide scope readings.

Questioning Fodor and Sag’s original example Let me point out first that the two available readings of (4.21) are specific and unspecific readings of the indefinite a student of mine in the sense discussed in Section 3.1 and not wide and narrow scope readings, respectively. The unspecific reading is one where every teacher overheard the rumor that someone of the student-of-the-speakerkind has been called before the dean. In this reading, every teacher could deny for every single student that she overheard a rumor about her, and the sentence could still be true. The specific reading demands that there be one student for whom it holds that she has the property that there exists a rumor about her (that she had been called before the dean) and every teacher overheard this rumour. But even under this view, it would not directly follow that the ‘intermediate scope’ reading, i.e. the reading where there are different rumours for different students (varying with the teachers), should be missing. The universal quantifier (each teacher) c-commands the intensional operator (the rumour that) and so variation with the teachers should be possible. The specific reading should be one where every teacher overheard a rumour about a particular (possibly different) student of the speaker, namely the rumour that this student was called before the dean. However, the sentence lacks such a reading and it seems as if the indefinite a student of mine can only be read unspecifically or ‘extremely specifically’ (i.e. in a way where the students do not vary with the teachers). In other words, under the specific/unspecific ambiguity it does not follow that the sentence lacks the intermediate reading – just as little as it would follow from a scope mechanism that the sentence only supports either a widest scope or a narrowest scope reading. In the latter case, there is no obvious reason why the indefinite cannot take exceptional wide intermediate scope, i.e. under the universal quantifier, but above the DP with the finite clause complement, as Fodor and Sag claim. And in the former case, there is no reason why the indefinite has to be read ‘so specifically’ that the students cannot vary with the teachers. That sentence (4.21) lacks such an intermediate reading is hence very surprising indeed and needs to be explained. Before turning to an explanation for the missing intermediate reading, let me add one point: I have argued before that slim indefinites do not take genuine wide scope as easily as their emphatic counterparts. So it would be theoretically conceivable that

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different interpretative possibilities emerge when emphatic indefinites are involved because they allow for scope-shifting more easily. However, we will see that the main interpretation facts are preserved with an emphatic realization of the indefinite, i.e. the intermediate reading is also missing in this case. First, consider the following example, where a student of mine has been replaced by some student of mine. (4.22) Each teacher overheard the rumor that some student of mine had been called before the dean. Example (4.22) seems to allow for the same readings as (4.21). Fodor and Sag’s point that the intermediate scope reading is missing still holds. When we translate the example into German and the determiner receives a heavy accent, only the widest scope reading is available. (4.23) Jeder Dozent hat das Gerücht gehört, dass ↑EIN Student von mir zum every lecturer has the rumor

heard

that

some student of

mine to-the

Dekan gerufen wurde. dean

called

was

‘Every teacher overheard the rumor that some student of mine had been called before the dean.’ Crucially, (4.22) and (4.23) still unexpectedly lack an intermediate scope reading. But this does not necessarily mean that indefinites have to be treated as ambiguous between a quantificational and a referential reading. The missing intermediate scope reading could be due to the definite DP the rumor.13 Although the exact licensing conditions of the definite article in the DP the rumor are unclear,14 it is obvious that the slightly modified version of (4.21) in (4.24b), where the definite article of the rumour has been replaced by an indefinite one, actually has an intermediate scope reading.15 (4.24)

a. There is a lot of different gossip around at the moment. When I asked around, I learned the following: b. Each teacher overheard a rumor that a student of mine had been called before the dean. c. And each time it was a different student.

13 See

(Bende-Farkas and Kamp, 2001, p. 33) and (Kratzer, 1998) for a similar conclusion. See also (Ludlow and Neale, 1991), where Fodor and Sag’s original example is questioned and structurally similar sentences are presented that allow for intermediate scope readings. 14 (Fodor and Sag, 1982, p. 369) note that the definite article does not block a wide scope interpretation of each student in Someone spoke to the father of each student, which they indirectly take as evidence that the definite article cannot be the reason for a missing intermediate scope co-variation reading. However, father is clearly a functional expression, which licenses the use of the definite article in the father of each student, even if the fathers vary with the students. Example (4.21) as well as (4.22) do not contain any functional arguments that could license the definite article in a non-rigid reading, i.e. in a reading with varying students for the rumor. In other words, apparently rumor cannot be (re-)interpreted as functionally dependent, which would be necessary to license the definite article in a co-variation reading for the students. 15 For the sake of completeness, no matter if the indefinites are realized in their slim versions or emphatically, the sentences exhibit intermediate scope readings.


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(4.24a) gives a plausible context for the sentence in (4.24b) and (4.24c) is a possible follow-up sentence that enforces the intermediate scope reading. Note that (4.21) uttered in the same context would still not allow for an intermediate reading, i.e. (4.24c) could not be interpreted as a coherent follow-up sentence of (4.21). We can force the same effects also in German. (4.25)

a. Momentan wird viel geredet. Als ich ein bisschen herumgefragt habe, hörte ich folgendes: (There is a lot of different gossip around at the moment. When I asked around, I learned the following:) b. Jeder Dozent hat ein Gerücht gehört, dass ein Student von mir every lecturer had some rumor

heard

that a

student of

mine

zum Dekan gerufen wurde. to-the dean

called

was

‘Every teacher overheard a rumor that a student of mine had been called before the dean.’ c. Und jedes Mal war es ein anderer Student. (And each time it was a different student.) (4.25b) also allows for an intermediate scope reading, as verified by the context given and the possible continuation in (4.25c). It now remains to be verified that the finite clause complement of the indefinite DP a rumor constitutes a scope island just like its definite counterpart. It is an indisputable fact that sentence (4.26) does not allow for a reading in which every student of mine takes scope out of the embedded clause (regardless of intonation). (4.26) Some teacher overheard a rumor that every student of mine had been called before the dean. This is most likely due to the fact that the indefinite a rumor plus complement counts as scope island for the strong quantifier every student of mine.16

Counterexamples to Fodor and Sag’s claim: intermediate scope There are several papers that challenge Fodor and Sag’s claim empirically (Farkas, 1981; King, 1988; Ruys, 1992; Abusch, 1994). In these works, one can find many examples of sentences that have the intermediate scope reading, which Fodor and Sag 16 Kratzer

(1998) offers a different explanation for the fact that (4.24b) has an intermediate scope reading and (4.21) does not. She argues that existential presuppositions associated with certain indefinites can evoke apparent intermediate scope readings. The difference between (4.24b) and (4.21) is due to the wellknown different ability of definite and indefinite DPs to allow extraction from them. While an indefinite DP allows extraction easily, a definite does not (see e.g. Diesing, 1992). Accordingly, the presupposition associated with the indefinite a student of mine in (4.21) (which is accommodated into the assumed eventuality res-argument of the rumour ) has to be evaluated within the scope of the definite the rumor, whereas this presupposition can leave the DP a rumor in (4.24b).

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claim not to exist. Let us first consider a variant of Fodor and Sag’s example from (Kratzer, 1998, p. 166), which seems to support an intermediate scope reading. (4.27) [Each teacher]i overheard the rumor that a/some student of hisi had been called before the dean. The sentence has a reading saying that for every teacher there exists some specific student of his such that the teacher overheard the rumor that this student had been called before the dean. Clearly, the difference with the original example from Fodor and Sag is the presence of the bound pronoun his. Abusch (1994) presents several other examples of this type, which all allow for a reading similar to the one which exists for (4.27). Ruys (1992, 1999), too, uses indefinites containing bound pronouns to enforce such intermediate readings. But there are also intermediate scope readings for indefinites that do not contain any overt bound pronouns or other function inducing elements. One such example comes from (Reinhart, 1997, p. 346), who attributes the origin of a similar example to (Ruys, 1992). A structurally related example can be found in (Farkas, 1981, ex. 17a, p. 64). (4.28) Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem. The sentence has a reading where some problem, which is embedded in a scope island (i.e. the relative clause), takes scope out of this island over the quantifier every analysis, but below the quantifier most linguists. The resulting reading is the following: For most linguists there exists some particular problem – say for linguist A it is antecedent contained deletion, for linguist B it is binding and for linguist C it is conditionals – and each linguist knows every analysis that solves his particular problem. Other examples of intermediate scope readings of indefinites in English and German would be the following: (4.29)

a. Every student has announced that he will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up. b. Jeder Student hat angekündigt, die Party sofort zu verlassen, every student has announced,

the party immediately to leave,

wenn ↑EIN Dozent auftaucht. if


‘Every student has announced that he will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up.’ The English sentence in (a) and the German equivalent in (b) quite easily receive the reading where for every student there is a different lecturer such that the student announced that he will leave the party immediately if this lecturer shows up. These examples constitute obvious counterexamples to Fodor and Sag’s original claim that indefinites are only two-way ambiguous between a referential and a quantificational reading.


4.4.2

123

Other Approaches

Many more approaches rely on the assumption that exceptional wide scope comes about via some kind of speaker’s reference (e.g. Kratzer, 1998; Yeom, 1998; BendeFarkas and Kamp, 2001; Schwarzschild, 2002; Dekker, 2002; Breheny, 2003; Umbach, 2004; Schlenker, 2005).17 However, these authors are all aware of the intermediate scope problem and deliver different kinds of solutions to it. Kratzer’s approach, which makes use of parameterized choice functions, will be discussed in Section 4.7, where I discuss choice function approaches in general. Schwarzschild, Breheny, and Schlenker assume that it is actually reference to a certain property that the speaker makes. This property can be so specific that it is met by only one individual, i.e. there is some identifying idea (Breheny, 2003) or identifying property (Umbach, 2004; Schlenker, 2005) underlying the indefinite under discussion. I will discuss some problematic aspects of these three approaches in the following section and discuss the approaches more generally under the rubric domain restriction in Section 4.5 below, because the underlying idea of these approaches is that there is some kind of implicit restriction that evokes the apparent exceptional wide scope interpretation of the indefinite. Yeom’s approach will be examined in Section 4.6 when I discuss approaches that rely on the assumption that exceptional wide scope comes about as a result of presupposition resolution, where a specific indefinite is assumed to presuppose its lexical content. The advantage of these approaches is evident. When an indefinite is interpreted referentially in some way or other, it acts like a non-scope-bearing element and yet seems to take maximal scope. It is hence predicted that syntactic islands play no role and that it only seems as if indefinites could easily scope out of islands.

4.4.3

Problems

The approach of Fodor and Sag (1982) and all approaches that subscribe to the view that exceptional wide scope readings are, in fact, only apparent wide scope readings which come about via the speaker’s reference to a certain individual or property, have to face the question of how the speaker’s intention (what the speaker wants to refer to) – i.e. a pragmatic notion – eventually enters into semantics. In the end, exceptional wide scope readings are readings, i.e. they must be truth-conditionally differentiable from the narrow scope readings. I understand it that all these theories assume in some way or other that the respective sentence is true in its wide scope reading if the referent the speaker has in mind fulfills the sentence predicate and that it is false (or undefined) otherwise. This assumption is made explicit in (Fodor and Sag, 1982), (Yeom, 1998), and (Breheny, 2003). In (Fodor and Sag, 1982), it is explicitly claimed that a hearer who hears an utterance containing a referential indefinite can only evaluate whether 17 Note that I refer to a manuscript of Schlenker which was and still is available on his homepage. In the meantime, the manuscript has turned into a paper that has been published in the Journal of Semantics in August 2006 (Schlenker, 2006). The newly published paper lacks certain relevant aspects from the earlier version, e.g. Schlenker’s own proposal for a treatment of exceptional wide scope phenomena and the explanatory part on why modified numerals cannot be used specifically, which I discuss below. I therefore cite the manuscript when referring to those parts that are missing in the published version.

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the existential statement (i.e. the same sentence with an ordinary indefinite and not a referential one) is true, but not whether or not the speaker’s assertion is true, precisely because the hearer does not know who or what the speaker is referring to. Bende-Farkas and Kamp (2001) hold a very similar view to the one of Fodor and Sag, but they differentiate between the specific use of an indefinite and the specific interpretation. A speaker can use an indefinite with specific intention (i.e. as referring – or being anchored in their terminology – to a referent d) and the hearer can interpret an indefinite specifically if he understands it as the anchor the speaker presumably refers to, i.e. the speaker interprets the indefinite as the referent he thinks the speaker is referring to. However, this, they say, is possible also if the hearer is not acquainted with the referent himself. It suffices if the hearer knows that there is some anchor in the speaker’s mind that the speaker wants to refer to. In other words, both the speaker and the hearer are aware of the speaker-hearer asymmetry that the use of a specific indefinite involves and so the hearer adjusts his interpretation mechanism to this asymmetry. There is intensive discussion in Bende-Farkas and Kamp’s work about whether such specific interpretations would better be seen as ‘post-semantic’ inferences18 or whether they should actually be reflected in the semantics and thus represent an independent reading of their own. As there are overt specificity markers in many languages (e.g. bestimmt in German), they come to the conclusion that specificity cannot simply be deferred to (post-semantic) pragmatics in its entirety, but has to be represented in the semantics, as well. Be this as it may, my aim is to show that even this move would not account for all kinds of (exceptional) wide scope readings and that there are readings that are entirely independent of speakers’ intentions, but simply indicate wide scope of the indefinite. Reference to What? Fodor and Sag briefly discuss cases where the speaker uses an inappropriate description such as an anthropology major although, in fact, the student he wants to refer to is a sociology major. (Fodor and Sag, 1982, pp. 363–64.) say about such cases: if the speaker intended to make an assertion about a particular person [by way of the description ‘an anthropology major’, CE], and was so understood by the hearer, then in Donnellan fashion [...] the hearer might well be able to divine which student the speaker had in mind, and might be prepared to overlook the inaccuracy and judge the assertion to be substantially true. I will argue in the following that – although the truth conditions of sentences containing specific or referential indefinites might sometimes be dependent on speakers’ intentions and although the hearer might be willing to overlook certain kinds of inaccuracies – not all instances of exceptional wide scope readings are such that speakers’ intentions directly influence the truth conditions of the sentence. First of all, let me point out that wide scope indefinites can be uttered without the speaker knowing about their corresponding referents. This is a widely acknowledged fact (cf. also Geurts, 2002 for discussion). 18 For example, referential interpretation could come about in the following way: the hearer hypothesizes that the speaker must know someone of whom he knows that the sentence under discussion is true.


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(4.30) (My grandmother told me that) I will inherit a fortune if some relative of mine dies. But I don’t know who this is. In the case of (4.30), the speaker obviously does not know the referent that makes the predicate λx. if x dies the speaker will inherit a fortune true. There are two explanations that are usually referred to by proponents of the speaker’s reference theories: 1. it is not speaker’s reference that matters in (4.30), but the person who actually knows the referent is someone else, namely the grandmother in this case; 2. the speaker does not need to know the referent itself, but a defining property of the individual that fulfills the sentence predicate. In the above case this could be e.g. the relative that owns five houses. The speaker might know that he has one relative who owns five houses, but he does not know who he is. However, there are examples of wide scope indefinites where neither 1. nor 2. is fulfilled. Consider first an example that is problematic for explanation19 1. (4.31) Before a football match, someone says: I bet that Peter will envy every interviewer that manages to talk to some player. (Namely to the one that will have scored the most goals.) At the time of utterance of (4.31), the speaker does not know (and no one else does) who the person will be such that Peter will envy every interviewer who talks to this person. This is due to the fact that the speaker cannot know who will have scored most goals after the match, i.e. the indefinite some player does not refer at the utterance time. Obviously, explanation 1. does not work in this instance, but explanation 2. is still possible. There is a property that can be assigned to the player, namely that he is the one that will have scored most goals. Consider now the following example, where neither 1. nor 2. would actually help. (4.32)

a. Imagine a group of people playing a (very strange) game. The rules are as follows: if a certain word that is agreed upon by the group is uttered by one person, everyone has to touch the floor with their hands. The person who touches the floor last has lost. Furthermore, if another word that has been agreed on is mentioned, everyone has to try to eat twenty grapes as quickly as possible. Now Maria enters the scene and asks about the game. Max explains the rules. Then Maria asks back: b. (So we are playing several runs of the game, right?) And for every run, if some word that we agree on beforehand is uttered, we all have to touch the floor as quickly as possible.

(4.32b) has a reading where the indefinite takes wide scope over the if -clause (and narrower scope than the universal quantifier every run). All that matters is that the indefinite takes exceptional wide scope out of the if -clause island. The sentence means that for every run, there is one particular word that has been agreed on such that if that 19 A similar example is discussed in (Umbach, 2004). See also example (5) in (Ludlow and Neale, 1991) and the subsequent discussion, where an indefinite also receives a wide scope interpretation, although the speaker does not know the referent that makes the entire utterance true.

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word is uttered, everyone has to touch the floor as quickly as possible. This reading is clearly distinct from the narrow scope reading, because in the case of some other word that has been agreed on before the game starts, the people do not have to touch the floor, but eat twenty grapes. It is quite clear that no one knows the referent of some word in (4.32b), because the word under discussion still has to be agreed on, i.e. there is no referent for some word yet. Furthermore, there is no property that holds for this word apart from the property that it has to be agreed on beforehand and that it is such that if it is uttered, everyone has to touch the floor. This property is already part of the utterance (4.32b) itself. That is, there is no additional identifying property for the particular word. This is testable by a continuation with a namely-phrase. There is no possibility of continuing (4.32b) in an informative way. While (4.30) could be followed by Namely my relative that owns five houses, there is no informative utterance that could be used to continue (4.32b). The utterance Namely the word that everyone has agreed on beforehand and that is such that if it is uttered everyone has to touch the floor as quickly as possible would not be informative, because it contains only information that is known already before the very utterance is made. The assumption that wide scope indefinites always have some additional property that the speaker has to be aware of leads to some kind of circularity in the case at hand (essentially in the same way as an uninformative function would lead to some kind of circularity as discussed in Section 3.3 for example (3.57a) and illustrated by the infelicitous continuations in (3.58)). The only way to derive the actual reading of (4.32b) would be to assume that the indefinite indeed takes genuine wide scope over the if -clause.

Truth Conditions There is another problem connected to the assumption that apparent wide scope is achieved as a result of speaker’s reference. Ludlow and Neale (1991) point out, based on arguments from Russell, that indefinites actually never refer at all, i.e. that they are not ambiguous between a referential and a quantificational interpretation as often argued.20 The authors argue that a sentence such as (4.33) A man from York died last night. expresses a proposition if in fact no men from York exist, namely a false one. In this case, there is no object the indefinite could possibly refer to (as, by assumption, there are no men from York). The authors argue that the utterance expresses a false proposition even when the indefinite is used referentially, i.e. when the speaker uses the indefinite with a certain referent in mind (of whom the speaker erroneously assumes that he is a man from York). If the indefinite was a referring expression which fails to refer in this case, no proposition should be expressed by (4.33) and the sentence should be uninterpretable, which it is not. Related arguments can be found to argue against a referential interpretation of emphatic indefinites. The scenarios and the general line of argumentation are very similar 20 See also (Schwarz, 2004) for further arguments against the referential/quantificational-ambiguity based on verb phrase ellipsis.


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to those presented in (Ludlow and Neale, 1991), where the authors argue against a referential interpretation of ordinary indefinites. Now consider the following example. (4.34)

a. ↑EIN Freund von Peter könnte uns hierbei bestimmt helfen. some friend

of

Peter could

us here

surely

help

‘Surely, some friend of Peter could help us here.’ b. Wenn ↑EIN Freund von Peter zur Party kommt, ist Maria glücklich. if

some friend

of

Peter to-the party comes

is Maria happy

‘If some friend of Peter comes to the party, Mary will be happy.’ c. Surely, some friend of Peter could help us here. d. If some friend of Peter comes to the party, Mary will be happy. (4.34a,c) have a reading saying that, among Peter’s friends, there is one who can help us. (4.34b,d) support a wide scope reading, which can be described as follows: there is a friend of Peter, and if this person turns up at the party, Mary will be happy. I will now construe two scenarios for the two sentences in (4.34) similar to the scenarios discussed in (Kripke, 1979) and to the Franz-Ferdinand-example from Section 3.2.1. In all scenarios, Franz is a person who makes the sentence predicate true, i.e. who can help us and who makes Maria happy if he shows up, and Ferdinand is a person who does not make the sentence predicate true. In scenario 1, both Franz and Ferdinand are friends of Peter’s. The speaker has Ferdinand in mind when he utters the sentences. In fact, both sentence-pairs (4.34a,c) and (4.34b,d) are true in such a situation, irrespective of who the speaker uttering (4.34a-d) is referring to. That is, even though the speaker is referring to Ferdinand when uttering the sentences, they are still conceived of as true. The speaker says something true, even though he does so accidentally. In this respect, emphatic indefinites do not behave differently from ordinary (slim) indefinites. The truth-value of the sentence in which they are embedded does not depend on the speaker’s reference as e.g. King (1988), Ludlow and Neale (1991), and Stalnaker (1998) point out for ordinary indefinites. Even though the sentence does not hold for the referent the speaker has in mind, it is true as said. Let’s take it that in the second scenario Mary actually hates all of Peter’s friends. So she will not be happy if either of them turns up. Hence, she will also not be happy if one specific friend of Peter shows up. Furthermore, Peter has no friends who could help us in our situation at hand. Let us assume this time that Franz is not a friend of Peter, but that the speaker believes him to be so and is referring to Franz when uttering the sentences under discussion. In such a situation, the sentences Franz could help us here and If Franz comes to the party, Mary will be happy would be true (because, as pointed out above, by assumption, Franz fulfills the sentence predicates). But what about the truth-value of (4.34a–d)? I would say the sentences are false, even if they are uttered by a speaker who is mistaken about the extension of the friends-of-Peter set and believes Franz to be one of Peter’s friends. It is at least undoubtable that they are not true. As mentioned above, Kripke’s (1979) intuitions for referentially-used definites seem to be similar. The speaker is obviously mistaken, but the sentences would still not be conceived of as true. This view is also defended by Dekker (1998, 2002), who argues that (specific) indefinites are always uttered with some kind of speaker’s reference, although they are not

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referential expressions by themselves. Subsequently used pronouns can relate back to these intended referents. The discourse referent introduced by an indefinite is eventually linked to some entity in the world. This link might be only indirect: the speaker himself might not be able to link it to an individual in the world, but might have only heard of it via others. Yet, this link of a discourse referent to an individual does not necessarily influence the truth conditions of the sentence containing the indefinite. Dekker (1998) gives the following example (his examples (7)–(10), p. 311). (4.35)

a. (A:) Yesterday, a man came in my office who asked where he could find the secretary. b. (B:) Was he smoking this smelly pipe tobacco? c. 1. (A:) He was indeed smoking this smelly pipe tobacco. 2. (A:) # I don’t know.

In a situation in which two persons, Rod and Roger, had come in and asked about the secretary, but only Rod was smoking a smelly pipe tobacco, A’s utterance, the combination of (4.35a) and (4.35c.1), would be true – independent of whether the speaker had Rod or Roger in mind when speaking. However, if he had Roger in mind, Dekker says that it would not be ‘licensed’. Furthermore, answer (4.35c.2) would be inappropriate, because the speaker must know who he is talking about and could not argue that he had not actually made up his mind who he was talking about when uttering (4.35a). Most importantly, we see that speaker’s reference has no direct influence on the truth conditions of the sentence containing the indefinite, i.e. (4.35a). According to Dekker (1998) and Stalnaker (1998), (4.35a) would be true independent of who the speaker has in mind. It would also be true in a situation in which only Rod came into the office and Roger did not, but the speaker thinks he did and utters (4.35a) with reference to Roger. He would have said something true by uttering (4.35a), even if he did so only accidentally. When discussing wide scope readings vs. narrow scope readings as in example (4.34) above, all we actually want to account for are the different truth conditions of the two readings under discussion. It seems that speaker’s reference does not help us here. (Stalnaker, 1998, p. 16) puts it this way: Linguists sometimes distinguish specific from nonspecific noun phrases, corresponding roughly to the case where the speaker has someone or something in mind, and cases where he has not. The problem has always been to understand what difference this distinction makes for the truth conditions of statements containing the indefinite expression, and how facts about the speaker’s state of mind that were unavailable to the audience could be relevant to the semantics of what was being said. The account I am sketching suggests that this difference matters, not to the interpretation of the indefinite expression itself, but only to the evaluation of subsequent statements made with pronouns anaphoric to the indefinite expression. In other words, according to Stalnaker (1998), the truth conditions of the sentence containing a specific indefinite are not directly influenced by the speaker’s state of mind. It only matters for the evaluation of subsequent utterances containing pronouns referring to this indefinite. Note that this view differs from the one King (1988) holds, who argues that also the interpretation of pronouns is independent of any notion of speaker’s reference.


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a certain vs. some An issue similar to the question raised here is touched on by (Breheny, 2003) for a certain-indefinites. Breheny argues that (4.36a) (from Breheny, 2003, ex. 7, p. 40) is true just if the person the speaker has in mind was walking in the park and false otherwise (even if other men were walking around in the park). The same view is defended by Fodor and Sag (1982) for indefinites under their referential interpretation. (4.36)

a. A certain man was walking in the park. b. A certain friend of Peter could help us here. c. If a certain friend of Peter comes to the party, Mary will be happy.

According to (Breheny, 2003), (4.36b,c) would then be false in scenario 1, where the speaker has Ferdinand in mind when he utters the sentences, but Ferdinand is not someone that could help us/is not someone that makes Mary happy when showing up. And indeed, intuitively the sentences are considered as false or maybe as infelicitous, but certainly not as true. What about scenario 2? Here, we assumed that Franz is not a friend of Peter, but that the speaker believes him to be so and is referring to Franz when uttering (4.34b,c). (4.36b,c) would be conceived of as neither true nor false in such a scenario, because the person the speaker wants to refer to (Franz) is not a friend of Peter’s. There seems to be some kind of presupposition failure here, probably because a certain friend of Peter’s presupposes the speaker’s referent to be a friend of Peter’s as e.g. suggested by (Yeom, 1998). King (1988) understands Donnellan to hold a similar view. In footnote 8, p. 439 King writes: I assume that for the first sentence in a discourse such as ‘A(n) F is G. He/she/it/the F is H. etc.’ to be true on Donnellan’s view, the object the speaker has in mind must be an F. The emphatic indefinites in (4.34) and the a certain-indefinites in (4.36) seem to behave rather differently. While speaker’s reference seems to play a role in the second case, it does not in the first. So it might make sense to interpret the a certain-indefinites in (4.36) as denoting the individual the speaker has in mind, but this interpretation is not sensible for the emphatic indefinites in (4.34). Note that – as discussed in Section 3.1 – the indefinites in (4.36) are interpreted as the individuals the speaker has in mind and this could just be a special case of the general rule that a certain-indefinites are to be interpreted specifically with respect to opaque operators. In these cases, we have to assume the introduction of a tacit operator (KI ) (meaning I know that) that applies to the sentence. Assuming that the specific indefinite takes scope over the epistemic operator KI , the resulting reading for e.g. (4.36b) then is the following: there is a friend of Peter’s x, and the speaker knows that x could help us. So far, we have seen that not all wide scope readings can be explained in a theory in which wide scope indefinites are assumed to denote some individual that the speaker (or someone else) has in mind (see in particular examples (4.32) and (4.34)). We have also seen that this assumption might be sensible for specific indefinites, i.e. indefinites marked by a certain in English. But even specific indefinites – in the sense of specificity discussed in Chapter 3 – do not always involve speaker’s reference. The discussion so far has shown that most of the time it is hard to differentiate between

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the view that a specific indefinite is interpreted specifically with respect to an opaque operator (which might be tacit) and the assumption that a specific indefinite denotes an individual that the speaker has in mind. However, there are cases that can distinguish the two analyses and actually support the former. Reconsider first example (3.20) from (Hintikka, 1986), repeated below, where the claim that specific indefinites denote speakers’ referents could be upheld. (4.37)

a. Every true Englishman adores a certain woman. b. The Queen. c. His mother.

Sentence (4.37a) has two readings. In one, the indefinite takes widest scope. This reading is enforced by the continuation in (4.37b). It can be assumed, following Hintikka, that the sentence is embedded under a tacit epistemic operator KI and that the indefinite is specific with respect to this operator in the relevant widest scope reading. This would correspond to a reading where the indefinite is interpreted as an individual the speaker has in mind. But there is another reading, which is enforced by the continuation in (4.37c). This time, the indefinite is interpreted functionally and it is assumed that the speaker knows the function that maps every Englishman to the woman he adores. I dubbed this reading a functional wide scope reading in Section 3.3. The sentence only has these two readings. In particular, it does not have a narrow scope reading, which would pair Englishmen with women in some unknown way. As also discussed in Section 3.3, the narrow scope reading and the functional wide scope reading can be told apart by the nameability criterion. The function that the speaker is referring to and that pairs Englishmen with women has to be nameable in one way or other. I will refer to this as a ‘natural pairing’. But now consider another example from (Hintikka, 1986, ex. (24), p. 334). (4.38) Every one of these young men hopes to marry a certain woman. As opposed to (4.37a), this sentence, so Hintikka claims, does not have a functional reading, but only – or at least very preferably – a widest scope reading for a certain woman. He argues that this is due to the fact that there is no natural function available that would pair young men with women they want to marry. Breheny (2003) agrees with Hintikka (and Kratzer 1998 building on Hintikka) that the sentence receives a functional reading only very marginally. However, the sentence has a reading which is not the widest scope reading, but still different from a simple narrow scope reading, Breheny argues. It is not a natural function reading, but one that can be described as follows: for every young man there is a woman that the speaker has in mind such that the man wants to marry this woman. But this reading is probably just a special case of a different reading the sentence has, namely a reading where the indefinite is specific with respect to hope. So for every young man there is a specific woman (not just any) that he hopes to marry. In this reading – contrary to what Breheny claims – the speaker can, but does not need to, know which woman is paired with which man. He might just have become aware of the fact that all young men have been talking about their arrangements for their forthcoming weddings (with already chosen brides). Hence, he would know that all men hope to marry some specific woman, but he does not know whom each man hopes to marry nor is he aware of a (natural) function that pairs each


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man with a woman. In such a scenario, a speaker might perfectly well utter (4.38). Thus Breheny’s ‘reading’ would not be a genuine reading, but only a special case of this specific reading. Sentences such as (4.37a) on the one hand, where no overt opaque operator is present, and sentences such as (4.38) on the other, where there is an overt opaque operator below some other quantifier, shed doubt on approaches relying on the notion of speaker’s reference – even when trying to account for specificity, let alone wide scope readings in general. There is a clear difference between the available readings of (4.37a) and (4.38). While (4.37a) only allows for a natural pairing, (4.38) also has a reading where the pairing might be entirely arbitrary and cannot be described by a natural function such as e.g. the current girlfriend function. This difference follows directly from the view on specificity which has been advocated throughout this book: that specific indefinites have to be understood specifically with respect to some opaque operator. The difference between (4.37a) and (4.38) lies in the fact that the second sentence does contain an overt opaque operator (hopes), while the first sentence does not. Hence, in (4.38) a certain woman can be understood specifically with respect to this operator. In (4.37a), on the other hand, specificity is only possible with respect to some tacit operator KI , which then evokes the epistemically specific interpretation. This in turn forces the function to be a natural function that the speaker has in mind. Consider another example from (Pafel, 2005, p. 192), where a specific indefinite clearly takes wide scope over an opaque operator (must), but not widest scope with respect to all involved operators.21 (4.39) Bei jedem Sport muss man bestimmte unlogische Dinge at

every sports must one certain

illogic

things

lernen. [Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, 28.6.96, 24] learn

‘For every type of sport, one must learn certain illogical things.’ The specific indefinite takes wide scope over muss (must), but not over jedem Sport (every type of sport), as expected. However, there is one example (4.40) (brought up by Breheny, 2003, p. 42, ex. (12b)), which is crucial for the speaker’s reference analysis and which at first seems problematic for the simple view that specific indefinites have to take scope at least over one opaque operator. (4.40) I don’t think much of Freud and his type but I do admit that most problems my patients have stem from a certain childhood experience. Imagine the sentence is uttered by an anti-theoretical psychiatrist, who does not believe that most problems stem from a certain kind of childhood experience, say from the fact that the patients did not get enough attention from their parents between the age of one and two. That is to say the sentence has no natural function reading. Yet, Breheny claims, it has a reading that is not equivalent to the widest scope reading, 21 Pafel (2005) does not analyze the indefinite in (4.39) as taking scope over an opaque operator. He tentatively suggests that the indefinite contains a covert bound pronoun and does not take widest scope for this reason. However, the presence of the opaque operator must seems to be decisive, here.

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namely one where the individuals in the binding domain are paired with an individual (or collection) which the speaker has in mind (Breheny, 2003, p. 42). The speaker has to know which experience is paired with which problem. Such an assumption is certainly very plausible, because the therapist most probably knows about the childhood experiences of his patients. But again this is not a reading of its own. The therapist could continue (4.40) with (4.41) Although concerning some patients, they have not told me about their childhood experience yet. But it is quite clear that there is one such experience that caused their problems. To stick to the above assumptions that a certain-indefinites are specific with respect to opaque operators, to stem from has to be treated as an opaque operator. The following example supports this assumption. (4.42) Paul’s problems stem from (the fact that he had) a bad childhood experience. Sentence (4.42) seems to have a specific and an unspecific reading, which can only be present due to the existence of some opaque operator – most likely the verb to stem from. In the specific reading, there was a certain bad experience Paul had (among possibly many others) that caused his present problems; and in the unspecific reading, the mere fact of having had a bad experience during his childhood caused Paul’s problems. If it is assumed that to stem from is an opaque operator, the a certain-indefinite in (4.40) is specific with respect to this operator on the most prominent reading of the sentence, which is the following: for most problems of my patients there is one childhood experience such that this experience is the source for the respective problem. Finally, let me also point out that all approaches that rely on some concept of speaker’s reference or other have little to say about the classification of wide scope indefinites, illustrated by way of example (4.10) of Section 4.2. It was shown that e.g. several horses is a wide scope quantifier, but few horses is not. But why is it that only a small class of quantifiers can take exceptional wide scope? This does not follow from the speaker’s reference view, at least not straightforwardly. And this question is usually not addressed. That a speaker is able to utter a DP such as several horses as a speaker’s referent (when referring to a particular set of horses she has in mind), whereas she cannot utter few horses in the same way (as referring to a particular set of horses, which are overall few) is not a consequence of the speaker’s reference view as such. It might be an underlying assumption of this family of proposals that the referential reading of an indefinite has to be a special case of the quantificational reading. This would then explain why all non-monotonic (such as exactly three horses) and all downward monotonic quantifiers (such as few horses) cannot be understood referentially, which would leave the upward monotonic quantifiers such as at least three horses to be excluded from a referential reading. (Schwarzschild, 2002) and (Schlenker, 2005) have some comments about the difference between modified numeral quantifiers such as at least three/more than two horses and unmodified ones such as three horses, which are aimed at explaining why only the former and not the latter appear to take wide scope out of syntactic islands. The argument is as follows: if the speaker knew the exact number of horses, she would not use a modified numeral quantifier, but an unmodified one. Hence, she cannot use such a modified numeral quantifier as speaker’s


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referent (because in this case she would know the exact number) and the indefinite cannot receive exceptional wide scope via this mechanism. While there might be a common underlying assumption of the proponents of the speaker’s reference view that downward entailing and non-monotonic quantifiers cannot be read referentially for the above-mentioned reasons, this would require some discussion. As it stands, the approaches relying on speaker’s reference cannot account for the classification into wide scope and non-wide scope quantifiers. In conclusion, it has turned out that specific indefinites are better not interpreted as ‘the individual the speaker has in mind’. As pointed out in Chapter 3, my notion of specificity follows (Ioup, 1977), where specificity is defined as holding with respect to opaque operators. That specific indefinites sometimes seem to denote speakers’ referents then might just stem from the fact that sentences can contain (possibly tacit) epistemic operators with respect to which the involved indefinite has to be read as specific. Hence, when the involved opaque operator is an epistemic one, the two conceptions of specificity – the speaker’s referent view and the opacity view – yield the same results. But when other non-epistemic operators are involved, the account of (Ioup, 1977) yields much better results (cf. e.g. the possible readings of example (4.37) vs. (4.38)). Furthermore, there are cases of indefinites that take genuine wide scope (see examples (4.32) and (4.34)). These indefinites behave entirely differently from specific a certain-indefinites, which can be evidenced by an inspection of the underlying truth conditions of the sentences in which they are contained. This shows that at least some indefinites have to be treated like ordinary exceptional wide scope-taking indefinites independent of any notion of speaker’s reference. To conclude this section, let me cite (King, 1988, p. 438): I suspect that this feeling [that indefinites must sometimes refer to particular individuals, CE] stems not so much from the arguments that have been offered for AT [the ‘ambiguity thesis’, i.e. that indefinites are ambiguous between an existential and a referential(-like) reading, CE] as from the undeniable fact that we often use indefinites when we are thinking of particular individuals. Thinking of an old college friend, I say, for example ‘I have a friend who lives in Denver.’ In such instances we are apt to say that we were ‘talking about’ the old friend and the step from ‘talking about’ to ‘referring to’ comes all too quickly. Such cases need not bother the proponent of UT [the ‘univocality thesis’, i.e. that indefinites always have the semantic function of asserting existential generalizations, CE]. He/she simply describes this as a case in which one believes F a and asserts (Ex)F x. He/she can even agree that a was being talked about, though he/she will understand this to mean simply that (Ex)F x was asserted because or on the basis of a belief that F a.

4.5 Approaches Relying on Domain Restriction The approaches of (Portner and Yabushita, 2001; Portner, 2002; Schwarzschild, 2002; Breheny, 2003; Schlenker, 2005) have very much in common with the speaker’s reference approach of Fodor and Sag (1982) above. But whereas Fodor and Sag assume that there is some individual the speaker has in mind, in these approaches there is some salient property that is only known to the speaker. For example the restrictor of

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three horses can be implicitly restricted to horses that have a particular property the speaker has in mind. In the end this property might be so specific that it holds only for three particular horses. These are the three horses she wants to refer to. But the speaker does not necessarily have to know the referents for these three horses. She might simply know about some identifying property.

4.5.1

Schwarzschild (2002)

The theory of Schwarzschild (2002) has become the most influential one among the domain restriction approaches. The idea is that in the case of singular indefinites, the restrictor is explicitly or implicitly restricted by some property that might be so specific that it is met by only one individual. This accounts for the apparent wide scope cases of singular indefinites. In example (4.30), the identifying property might be λx[relative(x) ∧ own 5 houses(x)], as hinted at above. The speaker might not actually know the referent that meets this property, but she knows that there is (at least) one such relative. Again, there is a speaker-hearer asymmetry here. (Schwarzschild, 2002, p. 307) refers to this asymmetry as the privacy principle: It is possible for a felicitous utterance to contain an implicitly restricted quantifier even though members of the audience are incapable of delimiting the extension of the implicit restriction without somehow making reference to the utterance itself. Schwarzschild carries on to say that what is important [...] is the speaker-listener asymmetry, not the details of what each must know. Schwarzschild assumes that the asymmetry might consist of the speaker knowing about some specific property of the individual she is referring to or knowing that somebody else (she got her information from) does. However, example (4.32) above illustrates that such an asymmetry does not exist for all cases of (exceptional) wide scope. Let us investigate Schwarzschild’s proposal in closer detail. He gives the following example (his example (7)). (4.43) Everyone at the party voted to watch a movie that Phil said was his favorite. In this case, it is plausible to assume that there is actually only one movie that Phil said was his favorite. The indefinite a movie that Phil said was his favorite in (4.43) is hence a singleton indefinite in Schwarzschild’s terminology. It is obvious that if there is only one movie with the restricting property that Phil said was his favorite, the actual scope of the existential quantifier introduced by the indefinite does not matter. The indefinite can be interpreted in situ and yet appears to take wide scope. Schwarzschild now claims that indefinites that appear to take exceptional wide scope are actually singleton indefinites, as illustrated by the following example (Schwarzschild’s example (9)). (4.44) No one had read most of the reviews that were written about a movie that Phil said was his favorite. Furthermore, Schwarzschild assumes that an indefinite might be a singleton indefinite relative to some quantifier that it depends on. The relevant example is the following (Schwarzschild’s example (13)).


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(4.45) Every boy voted for a movie that his mother said was her favorite. Again, it is plausible to assume that there is only one movie per boy that his mother said was her favorite. In light of the fact that implicit domain restriction can involve bound variables, this accounts for (apparent) intermediate scope readings. I will illustrate this for example (4.28), repeated below as (4.46a), which eventually receives the analysis in (4.46b) via implicit domain restriction. This is, of course, an (apparent) intermediate scope reading roughly equivalent to (4.46c). (4.46)

a. Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem. b. Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem that they have worked on most extensively. c. For most linguists l there is some specific problem p such that l has looked at every analysis that solves p.

In other words, the extension of the restriction set of the indefinite some problem that they have worked on most extensively can be narrowed down to contain only one problem per linguist. Such a reading can be paraphrased as: for most linguists there is one particular problem (the one they have worked on most extensively) such that they have looked at every analysis that solves this problem. Furthermore, Schwarzschild points out that even if a scope-shifting mechanism was in operation, it would be necessary to restrict the quantificational domain of the indefinite, because otherwise one might end up with false truth conditions. Consider the intermediate scope reading of (4.46a) given in (4.46c) in a scope-shifting framework. If, for example, problems that have not been discovered yet are contained in the quantificational domain of some, the sentence would be true, even in cases where it would be intuitively judged as false. Suppose there is a problem p101 that has not been discovered yet. Then it would be true for any linguist l that he has looked at every analysis that solves p101 . Hence, it would also be true for most l, and (4.46a) would be true even if it is not the case that most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves one of the already detected problems. This is contrary to our intuitions and shows that domain restriction is needed anyway. It would, of course, be elegant if the very same mechanism could account for exceptional wide scope phenomena. However, exceptional wide scope readings do not always involve restriction to a singleton set (see below). It remains to be explained why not all quantifiers, but only certain weak quantifiers have this remarkable property that their restriction can be narrowed down to a singleton set (containing one singular or plural individual). Schwarzschild argues that nonindefinites, e.g. universals, carry an implicature that they are non-singletons. Hence, in their ordinary use, they cannot be understood as operating on a singleton set. This implicature can be canceled though, if the hearer knows that the speaker actually does not have full knowledge about the situation she is describing. Schwarzschild gives the following example: a boat is passing by, and the speaker says everyone on the boat has gone below deck. If the hearer has reason to believe that the speaker is acquainted with the inhabitants of the boat, she will infer that there is more than one inhabitant. But if the hearer believes that the speaker is just referring to the situation that there

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is no person on deck, she will not draw this conclusion. As for the unavailability of exceptional wide scope readings of modified numerals such as at least three horses, Schwarzschild offers an explanation similar to the one given by (Schlenker, 2005): The use of these quantifiers implies that the speaker does not know the exact cardinality of the restrictor set. The same kind of criticism discussed in the context of Schlenker’s explanation for the class of indefinites that allow for exceptional wide scope in Section 4.4.3 equally applies to Schwarzschild’s explanation.

4.5.2

Other Approaches

The approaches of (Portner and Yabushita, 2001; Portner, 2002; Schlenker, 2005) point in the same direction as the one of Schwarzschild. Restrictor sets can be implicitly restricted and this evokes the impression of wide scope of the respective indefinite. (Portner and Yabushita, 2001; Portner, 2002) ascribe the additional restriction to the topical status of the restrictor set. The advantage of these approaches is the same as the one referential theories have. Domain restriction is a pragmatic phenomenon that is certainly independent of syntactic island constraints. If an indefinite is implicitly restricted such that eventually it denotes the individual/the set the speaker wants to refer to, it acts like a non-scopebearing expression and appears to take maximal or (if the implicit restriction contains a bound variable) intermediate scope. It is predicted that the scope of these indefinites is not restricted by scope islands.

4.5.3

Problems

The most serious problem with the domain restriction approaches is the fact that an indefinite apparently taking exceptional wide scope cannot always be interpreted as a singleton indefinite. In the case of (4.43) and (4.44), it seems plausible to assume that the indefinite a movie that Phil said was his favorite is a singleton indefinite. However, there are other examples where it is not. Consider the following. (4.47)

a. Fritz has three relatives. b. If one of them dies, he will inherit a fortune.

(4.47b) has an exceptional wide scope reading. But in this case there is no obvious reason to interpret the DP one of them in (4.47b) as a singleton indefinite in the context of (4.47a), i.e. to interpret the restrictor set them (= the three relatives) as containing only one element (cf. the discussion in Section 3.2.2). In fact, the context tells us that the restrictor set them comprises three elements. The only way out would be to assume that the set is implicitly restricted by some property and that this set then has only one member. The determiner one would then be applied to this implicitly restricted set. However, the context introduces a set of three relatives, which makes all these three relatives highly salient. Why should there be an implicit restriction to just one of them in (4.47b)? Furthermore, it is highly implausible that the partitive indefinite one of them is built from a set that consists of only one individual (even if this restriction


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is only a covert one). If the speaker had a set of only one individual in mind when uttering (4.47b), what would license the use of the partitive? Usually, partitives are understood to pick out individuals or subsets from a bigger (contextually given) set and they cannot be used if the set is a singleton set. Quite to the contrary, if a speaker utters (4.48a) and the hearer knows nothing about the speaker, the hearer will conclude that the speaker has more than one Mexican relative, whereas the hearer will not draw such a conclusion when the speaker utters (4.48b). (4.48)

a. One of my Mexican relatives rang me up today. b. A Mexican relative of mine rang me up today.

It can be concluded that restrictor sets are usually covertly restricted and that there are such things as singleton indefinites; (4.48b) might be an example of such a singleton indefinite. In a world where the speaker has only one Mexican relative she can happily utter (4.48b). But there are also non-singleton set indefinites as exemplified by (4.48a) and (4.47b). Hence, not all exceptional wide scope-taking indefinites are singleton indefinites. It is obvious that the domain restriction approaches just illustrated are exposed to the same kind of criticism I outlined for the speaker’s reference approach in (4.4) except that the former can account for apparent intermediate scope readings. Reconsider example (4.46). Schwarzschild and the other authors subscribing to the domain restriction view argue that domain restriction can be relative to some c-commanding quantifier, i.e. it can be assumed that there is some covert variable in the restrictor of some problem that is bound to the linguists. But recall the discussion about functional and other non-functional co-variation readings from Section 3.3; we can verify that Schwarzschild’s strategy would only yield functional wide scope readings, but no genuine intermediate scope readings. The problem that is chosen depending on the value of the linguist has to be part of the same kind of restriction for each linguist, i.e. it must be a problem that each linguist has worked on most extensively for example. This corresponds to a functional interpretation. However, we have seen that indefinites also support ‘real’ co-variation readings. This also holds for indefinites that seem to take exceptional wide intermediate scope. Let me show this by way of the following example. (4.49) Genau drei Studenten haben angekündigt, die Party sofort exactly three students

have

announced

zu

the party immediately to

verlassen, wenn ↑EIN Dozent kommt. leave

if

some lecturer comes

‘Exactly three students have announced that they will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up.’ (4.49) lacks a narrow scope reading because the emphatic indefinite cannot be interpreted with narrow scope. It still has (at least) three readings. We will not be further concerned with the widest scope reading, which is: there is some particular lecturer, say Professor Smith, such that exactly three students have announced that they will leave the party immediately if he turns up. What matters are the intermediate readings of (4.49), of which there are two: one genuine intermediate scope reading and one – apparent intermediate – functional reading, which is in fact a functional wide scope

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reading. The genuine intermediate scope reading is true if there is one lecturer for each of exactly three students, say Mister Smith for student Sam, Mister Miller for student Marc and Mister Collins for student Carl, such that Sam leaves if Smith comes (but not necessarily if other lecturers show up), Marc leaves if Miller turns up, and Carl leaves if Collins shows up.22 This reading has different truth conditions from a simple narrow scope reading, because Sam, Marc, and Carl only leave in the case their particularly disliked lecturer shows up, but not if other lecturers come. This reading is also different from a functional wide scope reading, which is true if the three students leave when e.g. their supervisors turn up. Let’s take it that Miller is Marc’s supervisor, Smith is Sam’s, and Collins is Carl’s. Both the functional wide scope reading and the intermediate scope reading can be true in the case the three lecturers Miller, Collins, and Smith turn up and the corresponding students leave the party. However, the functional wide scope reading would be true if there are other students that also leave the party if some particular lecturer turns up, as long as these lecturers are not their supervisors (i.e. there are still exactly three students that leave if their supervisors turn up). The intermediate scope reading would be false in such a scenario, because there are more than three students who leave if some particular lecturer appears. The example shows that there are genuine intermediate scope readings also for indefinites that take exceptional wide scope. The same has been shown by Schwarz (2001a), who concludes that these readings have to be accounted for by some kind of long-distance scope-shifting mechanism (cf. also Chierchia, 2001). It is evident that domain restriction approaches can only account for the functional reading, but not for the genuine intermediate scope reading. This shows once more that a mechanism such as my mechanism M, to be outlined below, is required to account for scope phenomena via scope-shifting.

4.6 Presuppositional Approaches 4.6.1 Yeom (1998) Like all the authors mentioned above, Yeom holds an epistemic view of specificity. According to him, a specific indefinite denotes the entity the speaker or someone else, who is contextually salient, has in mind. Yeom says that the speaker or someone else has ‘cognitive contact’ with this entity. Cognitive contact indicates some acquaintance relation between the one who has cognitive contact and the individual she has cognitive contact with. So when a speaker uses a specific indefinite she indicates that she knows something about the individual that the hearer does not. She alludes to a speaker-hearer asymmetry. According to Yeom, it is this asymmetry which differentiates between specific indefinites and names.23 While the name-referent must be known to the hearer 22 If you have problems with this reading, try to put heavy stress on drei (while also keeping an accent on EIN ), which enforces the intermediate scope reading. 23 Yeom furthermore argues that the use of a definite description does not require any cognitive contact at all. Neither speaker nor hearer must be able to identify the referent.


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and the speaker, if it is used felicitously, the specific indefinite-referent is usually not known to the hearer. Yeom assumes that ordinary indefinites are ambiguous between a specific and an unspecific (= quantificational) interpretation. However, there are indefinites that are not ambiguous and only denote specific indefinites, as e.g. a certain-indefinites in English. Yeom has a clear picture about how this pragmatic notion of speaker’s intention affects truth conditions and enters into semantics: via presupposition evaluation. He assumes that a specific indefinite presupposes the existence of its referent and someone’s (most of the time the speaker’s) cognitive contact with it. Consider first example (4.50) from (Yeom, 1998, ex. (105), p. 229). (4.50)

a. A certain student laughed. b. ≪ ∃x.student(x) ∧ hccw (y, x) ≫ ∧ laugh(x) c. ∃x.student(x) ∧ hccw (y, x) ∧ laugh(x)

In formula (4.50b), ≪ φ ≫ marks the presupposition φ and hccw (y, x) says that y has cognitive contact with x. y is to be resolved contextually and can be bound to the speaker or someone else in the context. The context is either updated with the presuppositions first (i.e. before it is updated with the assertive part) or the presuppositions are incorporated into the assertion part by specific rules24 before it comes to the context update. The effect of these rules is that a presupposition can be evaluated at different positions. This mechanism corresponds to presupposition projection and accommodation in other approaches (see e.g. van der Sandt, 1992). In (4.50), when the context is updated with the presupposition first, this results in a context update equivalent to an update with the formula in (4.50c). Let us now consider an example where there is more than one possible scope position for the presupposition, i.e. where the presuppositional part can take wide or narrow scope with respect to some other operator. (4.51)

a. b. c. d. e. f.

(I rented three movies.) Every movie stars a certain actor. Namely Kiefer Sutherland. ∀x[movie(x) → ≪ ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, y)] ≫ ∧ star(x, y)] # ∀x[movie(x) → ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, y) ∧ star(x, y)]] ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, y) ∧ ∀x[movie(x) → star(x, y)]] # ∀x[movie(x) ∧ ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, y)] → star(x, y)]

Assume again that cognitive contact holds between the speaker and the referent of the specific indefinite. In sentence (4.51a), there are basically three possibilities for the presupposition to be evaluated.25 It could receive narrow scope as in (4.51d), wide scope as in (4.51e) or intermediate scope as in (4.51f). In other theories (as e.g. that of van der Sandt, 1992) these three possibilities would be referred to as local, global and 24 These are rules specific to Yeom’s mechanism and his idea of context update. To explain these rules would mean introducing the entire apparatus, which would lead us too far astray. I hence cannot be faithful to the actual mechanism Yeom proposes and simplify things here. I hope that my exposition still transports the core ideas of Yeom’s approach. 25 Note again that what I report here is just the effect of Yeom’s mechanism and not how it actually proceeds. For details see (Yeom, 1998, especially Chapter 5, Section 5.9).

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intermediate presupposition accommodation, respectively. Usually, global accommodation, i.e. wide scope of the presuppositional part, is preferred over local accommodation. In (4.51), these heuristics would yield the desired result. It seems that reading (4.51e) is the only one available. The continuation in (4.51b) enforces this reading. Yeom points to certain problems of other presupposition theories and therefore proposes his own. Crucially, he suggests that it is always the most informative reading that survives among the different scope possibilities of the presupposition. A sentence s1 is more informative than a sentence s2 , if s1 eliminates more compatible possible worlds than s2 , i.e. the set of worlds that would make true s1 is a proper subset of the worlds that make true s2 . If there are two readings where neither one entails the other, both readings survive and the sentence is hence ambiguous. In line with most other authors, Yeom also assumes that a presupposition cannot take wider scope than the binder of every variable that appears in it, i.e. all variables must be bound when presupposition accommodation has taken place. Furthermore, a presupposition cannot be accommodated if this accommodation contradicts common knowledge of speaker and hearer. Concerning (4.51), the mechanism should rule out readings (4.51d,f) and predict that the wide scope reading (4.51e) is the only one that survives (as this is the only reading (4.51a) has). (4.51e) clearly entails the narrow scope reading (4.51d) and is therefore more informative. Hence (4.51d) does not survive. It is, however, not entirely clear to me what rules out reading (4.51f). If the existential quantifier of the antecedent of the implication is understood dynamically as usually in this framework, the formula represents a donkey reading saying that it holds for all movies and all actors the speaker has cognitive contact with that the movie stars the actor. This reading is not entailed by (4.51e) and should hence survive. As far as I can see, Yeom cannot exclude this donkey reading.26 But let us assume for the sake of the argument that only (4.51e) survives. (4.51a) can have a second reading, in which the respective actor is dependent on the value of the movie. This reading would be reinforced if (4.51a) was followed by (4.52b). Yeom accounts for this reading by the assumption that cognitive contact can hold between a person and a referent or between a person and a relation R, which has to be resolved by context. Also the person that has cognitive contact is to be resolved contextually. (4.52)

a. (I rented three movies.) Every movie stars a certain actor. b. Namely my favorite actor for the respective genre. c. ∀x[movie(x) →≪ ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, R) ∧ R(x, y)] ≫ ∧ star(x, y)] d. ∀x[movie(x) → ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, R) ∧ R(x, y) ∧ star(x, y)]] e. ∗ ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, R) ∧ R(x, y) ∧ ∀x[movie(x) → star(x, y)]] f. # ∀x[movie(x) ∧ ∃y[actor (y) ∧ hccw (z, R) ∧ R(x, y)] → star(x, y)]

26 Yeom discusses a related example, namely Every umbrella belongs to a certain gentleman, and excludes the (strong) donkey reading by way of world knowledge, if I understand him correctly: Then an umbrella can belong to several different gentlemen, which is odd. (Yeom, 1998, p. 232). But such an explanation would not work for example (4.51a), as it is perfectly possible that a film stars more than one actor.


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According to Yeom’s principles, the wide scope reading (4.52e) is ruled out because there would be a (non-contextually resolved) free variable x. Again, it is not clear to me what rules out (4.52f). But let us assume that only (4.52d) survives. This reading is equivalent to a narrow scope reading except for the fact that the speaker has cognitive contact with, i.e. knows, the relation that holds between movies and actors. Such a reading is very similar to what I refer to as a functional wide scope reading. Yeom’s theory can easily account for specific readings of indefinites that are embedded in believe-contexts, readings that other theories relying solely on scope orders cannot account for as straightforwardly. Recall the discussion in Section 3.1 of example (3.3), repeated below as (4.53a). (4.53)

a. Alberta believes that a dragon ate her petunias. b. believe(alberta, ≪ ∃x[dragon(x) ∧ hccw (y, x)] ≫ ∧ eat petunias(x)) c. believe(alberta, ∃x[dragon(x) ∧ hccw (y, x) ∧ eat petunias(x)])

Assuming that the speaker does not believe that dragons actually exist, the sentence still has a specific and an unspecific reading for a dragon. The specific reading would be one where Alberta thinks that there is one particular dragon among the (possibly many) individuals that she believes to be dragons, and she thinks that this very dragon ate her petunias. (4.53c) represents this reading under the assumption that y is instantiated by Alberta, i.e. Alberta is the one that has cognitive contact with the dragon. The presupposition is evaluated in Alberta’s world and not accommodated globally because global accommodation would contradict the speaker’s (and hearer’s) knowledge that dragons do not exist. Hence, (4.53c) would be the only specific reading of (4.53a), if the speaker is known not to believe in dragons himself. We have seen above that a derivation of this reading at least involves making additional assumptions in other theories that understand specific readings as wide scope readings over opaque or epistemic operators. However, we have also seen that there are ways to account for this reading also in the frameworks of such scope theories of specificity. Yet, it is certainly an advantage of Yeom’s theory that it accounts for the relevant reading without having to make further stipulations. However, while Yeom’s theory performs well in the aforementioned example, the theory is unable to account for the wide scope tendency of specific indefinites in the general case. (4.54)

a. If a certain friend of Peter’s comes to the party, Alberta will be happy. b. ≪ ∃x[peter ′ s friend (x) ∧ hccw (y, x)] ≫ ∧ come to party(x) → happy(alberta) ′ c. ∃x[peter s friend (x) ∧ hccw (y, x) ∧ [come to party(x) → happy(alberta)]] d. ∃x[peter ′ s friend (x) ∧ hccw (y, x) ∧ come to party(x)] → happy(alberta)

Excluding all very marginal functional/dependent readings, should they exist at all, the sentence only has a wide scope reading as represented in (4.54c) and lacks the narrow scope reading in (4.54d). Yeom’s theory would not predict this. Let us assume that

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cognitive contact holds between the speaker and some friend of Peter’s, i.e. y is again bound to the speaker. It is easy to see that neither does the wide scope reading entail the narrow scope reading nor does the narrow scope reading entail the wide scope one (for discussion of entailing readings with conditionals and misjudgments of alleged entailments see Ruys, 2003). Imagine a family of worlds W1 with the following characteristics: Peter has two friends, Frank and Florian. Frank comes to the party, Florian does not, and Alberta is not happy. In this case, (4.54d) is clearly false because there is a friend of Peter’s who comes to the party and yet, Alberta is not happy. (4.54c) however is true, if the implication is interpreted as a material implication. Here, the formula can be trivialized because the antecedent of the implication can be falsified by choosing a friend of Peter’s who does not come to the party, namely Florian. Hence, the formula is true regardless of the truth-value of the consequent. Hence, (4.54c) is true in the worlds W1 , but (4.54d) is false. Now consider W2 , where Peter has no friends at all. Consequently, none of his friends can come to the party. Alberta’s state of mind is happiness. This time, (4.54c) would be false in W2 , but (4.54d) would be true because the antecedent of the implication is false. So (4.54c) is false in the worlds W2 , but (4.54d) is true. This means that (4.54c) eliminates certain worlds and (4.54d) eliminates others, but neither reading entails the other and hence no reading is more informative than the other. So according to Yeom’s informativity principle, sentence (4.54a) should be ambiguous, but is not. Yeom could rightly object that treating the conditional in (4.54) as a material implication is too close-minded. (Recall the brief discussion in Section 4.1.) However, the main results are preserved when the conditional is treated in a more sophisticated way and the implication is interpreted as proposed by Stalnaker: neither reading entails the other. Let us assume that W1 and W2 have the same characteristics as before plus the additional assumption that in W1 Florian is a friend of Peter’s who would make Alberta happy if he came and in W2 Alberta would also be happy if Peter had some friends and at least one of them came to the party. We know that Florian does not attend the party in W1 . The worlds W ′ which are like the worlds in W1 except that Florian comes to the party are such that Alberta is indeed happy. (4.54c) would thus be true because in the worlds W ′ , which are like W1 except that the antecedent is true (Florian comes to the party), the consequent also holds true (Alberta is happy). (4.54d) would be false because Frank comes to the party, but Alberta is not happy. In W2 , (4.54c) would be false (Peter has no friends), and (4.54d) would be true because Alberta is happy in worlds W ′′ , which are just like W2 except that here, Peter has friends and one of them comes to the party. It is immaterial how the conditional is treated in this example: we end up with the result that neither reading entails the other. Hence, the narrow scope and wide scope reading should be available for sentence (4.54a) according to Yeom’s account. Yet, we only observe the wide scope reading. There is another line of argument that Yeom might want to resort to. However, this line of reasoning makes equally wrong predictions. It could be said that in worlds W2 , where Peter has no friends and the speaker knows this, global accommodation is excluded because this accommodation would contradict the speaker’s knowledge. Hence only local accommodation would be allowed and only reading (4.54d) would survive. In all cases where Peter actually has friends (and global accommodation is


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therefore allowed), reading (4.54d) is more informative than the wide scope reading (4.54c), because then (4.54d) can be shown to entail (4.54c) (see the case discussed for worlds W1 above). Under these assumptions, one would predict (4.54d) to be the only (or at least the prominent) reading of (4.54a). But this is not borne out, as it is reading (4.54c) that sentence (4.54a) has. So under this view there is one reading that is in fact more informative than the other, but it is the wrong one, namely the one that is not available for (4.54a). We see that in any case Yeom’s theory would make wrong predictions for (4.54). Yeom (1998) differs from most other approaches that rely on some notion of epistemic specificity in that he allows for the variable that determines who has cognitive contact with the individual/function under discussion to be bound by some quantifier that is contained within the sentence. To be precise, Yeom would predict the reading represented in (4.55b) to be one of the readings of (4.38) repeated below as (4.55a). (4.55)

a. Every one of these young men hopes to marry a certain woman. b. ∀x[these young men(x) → hope(x, ∃y[woman(y) ∧ hccw (x, y) ∧ marry(x, y)])]

This would be the desired specific reading that Breheny (2003) points out and that was discussed above (see Section 4.4). However, nothing in Yeom’s approach prevents (4.37a) (repeated below as (4.56a)) from receiving an interpretation along the same lines as indicated in (4.56b). (4.56)

a. Every true Englishman adores a certain woman. b. ∀x[true Englishman(x) → ∃y[woman(y) ∧ hccw (x, y) ∧ adore(x, y)]] c. The Queen. d. His mother.

Yeom is aware of the fact that he predicts this reading, but does not consider this a disadvantage. It is, however, problematic because, as pointed out above, (4.56a) only has the two readings that can be enforced by the continuations in (4.37b,c), repeated here as (4.56c,d). In particular, it does not have a genuine narrow scope reading, i.e. an ‘unnatural pairing’ reading. But (4.56b) represents such a narrow scope reading. Each Englishman is paired with a woman he adores (and hence also knows and has cognitive contact with). Hence, Yeom predicts a reading for (4.56a) that the sentence does not have. As there is no way to distinguish between the two configurations in (4.56a) and (4.55a) by means of cognitive contact, I see no way to correctly account for the different readings of these sentences in his theory.27 27 As was suggested to me by Manfred Krifka, the alleged problematic reading of (4.56a) could be excluded on other grounds, namely via economy considerations. The dependent reading Yeom’s account predicts would be indistinguishable from a simple narrow scope one. The narrow scope reading is more easily expressed by way of a sentence that is like (4.56a), but lacks the certain -specificity marker, i.e. where a certain woman is replaced by a woman. As uttering the sentence in (4.56a) would be more complicated than simply uttering the variant I just described, this option is blocked. Hence, (4.56) cannot be used to express the simple narrow scope reading, as there would be an easier alternative and (4.56a) would only obtain a specific reading for the indefinite, which is what we actually find. However, it was pointed out to me by Ede Zimmermann that Krifka’s objection can be invalidated by way of a related, but different example, namely when the decisive verb to adore, which presupposes cognitive

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4.6.2

Cresti (1995)

Yeom’s theory is similar to that of Cresti (1995) in that Cresti’s theory also assumes that wide scope indefinites presuppose their lexical content. Cresti (1995) takes as a starting point the theory of Heim (1982) and with it comes the assumption that indefinites are not inherently quantificational. She argues that indefinites that exhibit exceptional wide scope are always topic-marked.28 However, her notion of topicality is one of discourse-topicality in the sense of von Fintel (1994) and not one of aboutness topicality as adopted here. She argues that a topic-marked constituent bears some kind of existence presupposition. In the case of a topic-marked indefinite, this presupposition is the cause for a – in her terminology – ‘specific’ interpretation of the indefinite. In general, a topic-marked constituent carries the presupposition (in the form of a discourse anaphor) that it can only be evaluated in a context where this topic is under discussion. When an indefinite topic is evaluated, there is no antecedent for the discourse anaphor, because indefinites always introduce something new. Hence, the corresponding antecedent has to be generated. Eventually, this comes down to accommodating the existence of an entity which fulfills the restriction of the indefinite. Crucially, a sentence that contains a specific indefinite cannot be falsified simply on grounds that no object fulfilling the indefinite’s restriction exists. Rather, Cresti predicts the sentence to be truthvalueless due to a presupposition failure in the spirit of (Strawson, 1964). Consider the following examples (from Cresti, 1995, ex. (90a,c), p. 127). (4.58)

a. I did all the work I had to do. b. I did all the work that a friend of mine called Ann asked me to do.

Cresti reports that (4.58a,b) are felt as true even if there is no work the speaker had to do/Ann asked the speaker to do at the relevant time, but (4.58b) seems to be neither true nor false if no friend of the speaker called Ann exists. If one takes it that these intuitions directly reflect the sentences’ truth-values, as Cresti does, these results can be argued to directly follow from Cresti’s approach. In case a sentence contains a nontopical item with an unfulfilled presupposition as in (4.58a) (namely the work I had to do), the sentence has a clear truth value and is either true or false. If it contains a topical one as in (4.58b) (namely the specific indefinite a friend of mine called Ann), it comes out as truthvalueless, if the presupposition is not fulfilled. Here, the ‘specific’ and hence topical indefinite a friend of mine called Ann presupposes the existence of contact of the adorer to the adored person, is substituted by to overlook, where cognitive contact does not have to be presupposed. Consider the following example. (4.57) Every taxi driver overlooked a certain red light. Sentence (4.57) only allows for a wide scope reading of the indefinite, which my treatment of a certain indefinites predicts. However, Yeom predicts a reading along the lines of (4.56b), i.e. narrow scope for the indefinite with cognitive contact of the taxi drivers to the respective red lights that were overlooked. This time, the narrow scope reading with cognitive contact of the taxi drivers to the respective red light is not equivalent to the ordinary narrow scope reading. Hence, economy would not rule out this reading. Thus, there is no explanation as for why this reading is non-existent. 28 She also notes that not all topic-marked indefinites are necessarily specific. She briefly sketches the possibility of local presupposition accommodation into the restrictor of some quantifier over situations (Section 4.4.1 of her thesis) and also the existence of what I call functional wide scope readings (Sections 3.2.2 and 4.4.2).


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such a friend. If this presupposition is not satisfied, the sentence comes out as neither true nor false. The underlying assumption for this reasoning here is the following: some items come with an existence presupposition (e.g. definites or here: specific indefinites). If the presupposition projects up to the sentence level, the entire sentence carries this presupposition. If this presupposition is not fulfilled, the sentence receives no truth-value. And importantly, the fact that the sentence lacks a truth-value is assumed to be reflected empirically by a feeling of ‘squeamishness’ (see Strawson, 1964) on the part of the listener about giving a truth-value judgment. This is what Cresti argues is going on in (4.58b). In contrast to this, (4.58a) carries no presupposition (whether this is because there is no element that triggers a presupposition or because this presupposition is not projected to the sentence level is of no importance at this point). Consequently, (4.58a) is felt as simply true in the case there is no work the speaker had to do in the first place. It has, however, been pointed out recently by von Fintel (2004) that the feeling of ‘squeamishness’ cannot be taken to be an indicator of the fact that the sentence under discussion actually carries an unfulfilled presupposition. Von Fintel shows convincingly that sentences that are evaluated as being either true or false might carry failed existence presuppositions just as well as those where speakers are ‘squeamish’ about giving truth-value judgments. Truth-value intuitions are no reliable source for the detection of presuppositions. I follow von Fintel in this assumption, but will differ from his view in another crucial respect that I will lay out below after having briefly presented first Strawson’s (1964) and then von Fintel’s (2004) view. Strawson (1964) Strawson (1964) points out the relation between presuppositions and topicality. He argues that not all referential expressions pass up an existential presupposition to the propositional level, but that, in fact, only the topical ones evoke presuppositions for the entire sentence that they appear in. This, so he argues, is so because non-topical expressions (and their presuppositions) can be absorbed by the predicate. This absorption process then results in a complex predicate. Topical expressions, on the other hand, cannot be absorbed and therefore fail to be components of complex predicates. Strawson (1964) substantiates his assumption by means of data that make use of non-referring definites such as the (present) king of France. Consider the following examples, very similar variants of which are discussed by Strawson. (4.59)

a. Yesterday, the exhibition was visited by the king of France. b. Yesterday, the king of France visited the exhibition.

Under the assumption that there is a salient unique exhibition under discussion, (4.59a) is conceived of as false, whereas (4.59b), where the king of France is in subject position, is deviant. Strawson argues that this is so because topics pass up their presuppositions to the sentence level and evaluating sentences with unfulfilled presuppositions results in semantic deviance. When definite descriptions are non-topical, they are absorbed by the predicate. In (4.59a), the resulting complex predicate is being visited by the king of France. As this predicate holds for no entity (because the king of France does not exist and hence cannot visit anything), (4.59a) is simply false. Crucially, the

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core evidence for this analysis here comes from truth-value intuitions. As (4.59a) is conceived of as plainly false the sentence is argued not to carry a presupposition, while (4.59b) is felt as being neither true nor false and it is concluded to carry an existential presupposition. Here is another example. (4.60)

a. Yesterday, I found the largest prime. b. The largest prime has less than 5 figures.

The examples in (4.60) illustrate again that the non-topical definite description the largest prime in (4.60a) can be absorbed by the predicate found resulting in the complex predicate found the largest prime. As this property cannot hold for anyone (because there exists no largest prime), the sentence would be judged as false when uttered. (4.60b) is not felt to be false, but rather as deviant, because the largest prime does not refer. The same contrasts that Strawson points to with topical as opposed to non-topical definites can be replicated with indefinites, as shown in (4.61). (4.61)

a. Yesterday, I found an even prime which is greater than 2. b. Some even prime which is greater than 2 has less than 5 figures.

While (4.61a) is judged to be false, (4.61b) is felt to be deviant. This point is also made in (Reinhart, 1995, 1997), where it is argued that for this reason an ambiguity account for indefinites, where wide scope indefinites are assumed to be inherently presuppositional, whereas ordinary ones are assumed not to be, cannot be upheld.29 If one follows Strawson (1964) and Reinhart (1995, 1997), Cresti’s approach performs well. It predicts exactly the results that have been argued for by these authors. These approaches suggest the following reasoning: the topical indefinite in (4.61b) gives rise to presupposition failure and hence the sentence is felt as deviant. The non-topical indefinite in (4.61a), on the other hand, is absorbed into the predicate and thus the sentence is evaluated as simply false. This view of the absorption of non-topical indefinite DPs by the sentence predicate and the non-absorption of topical ones is reminiscent of the work of van Geenhoven (1998) on incorporation in West Greenlandic. The author notes that it has strikingly similar properties to split topicalization in German and the processing of bare plurals (in English and German). For example, the (syntactically) incorporated internal argument of an incorporating verb in West Greenlandic always takes narrow scope with respect to other scope-taking operators. It is always understood de dicto, if the incorporating verb is an opaque verb. And it cannot be interpreted partitively. It thus behaves just like bare plurals in English and German, and indefinites in German split topicalization constructions. Van Geenhoven’s idea is that the incorporated argument/bare plural/indefinite in split topicalization denotes a predicate. This predicate is then absorbed or semantically incorporated by the verb to form a more complex verb. It thus necessarily belongs to the predicative part of the sentence. Now, also simple indefinites such as an even prime in (4.61a) can be semantically incorporated in English, but 29 See also (Lappin and Reinhart, 1988), where it is argued that the speaker’s assessment of quantifier arguments – depending on what the evaluation process begins with – plays the crucial rule for the evaluation of presupposition failure.


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as opposed to bare plurals they do not have to be. In (4.61a), it is plausible to assume that the indefinite is semantically incorporated, which would then explain that the indefinite belongs to the predicative part of the sentence. In the general case, one could speculate that topical DPs cannot be semantically incorporated, whereas non-topical ones can be or even have to be, which would be a generalization of Strawson’s idea of absorption. Jacobs (2001) dubs this phenomenon of absorption semantic integration and shows that, as expected, topics cannot be integrated. This failure of integration has empirical syntactic and prosodic consequences (for details see Jacobs, 1991, 1992).

von Fintel (2004) In (von Fintel, 2004), it is shown convincingly that things are not quite as simple as one would have hoped for and as has been assumed by the abovementioned authors. In particular, native speakers’ intuitions on the ‘squeamishness’ or the plain truth or falsity of a given sentence cannot tell us whether the sentences under discussion carry presuppositional items, whether these project up to the propositional level, or whether these sentences should be semantically analysed as having no truthvalue or being false. One argument put forth by von Fintel makes crucial use of the Hey, wait a minute-test (which he reports is inspired by a criterion proposed by Shanon 1976). Von Fintel assumes that rejections introduced with Hey, wait a minute cannot challenge asserted material, but only presupposed (or possibly more generally: alleged backgrounded) material that is actually not in the common ground at the time of the utterance. He gives the following example to illustrate this point (von Fintel, 2004, p. 271, ex. (3)). (4.62)

a. A: The mathematician who proved Goldbach’s Conjecture is a woman. b. B: Hey, wait a minute. I had no idea that someone proved Goldbach’s Conjecture. c. B’: # Hey, wait a minute. I had no idea that that was a woman.

If one now applies this test to examples such us (4.59a) or (4.60a), which are consistently judged as false (and not as deviant) by native speakers, it is easy to see that these sentences still carry a presupposition that can be challenged with a Hey wait a minute-statement. (4.63)

a. b. c. d.

A: Yesterday, the exhibition was visited by the king of France. A’: Yesterday, I found the largest prime. B: Hey, wait a minute. I had no idea that France is still a monarchy. B’: Hey, wait a minute. I had no idea that there is something like a largest prime.

If one accepts the Hey, wait a minute-test as a means to test whether the challenged information is asserted or backgrounded, example (4.63) shows nicely that the information that there is a king of France and that there is something like a largest prime is not asserted information. Also in these cases the sentences carry an existential presupposition. The correspondence of truth-value gap intuitions (= the feeling of squeamishness) and the presence of presuppositions on the one hand and the judgment of a sentence as false and the absence of presuppositions on the other can thus not be upheld.

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Having established the fact that truth-value intuitions do not tell us anything about the presence or absence of presuppositions, von Fintel (2004) carries on to argue that they do not tell us anything about the topical status of the involved presupposing nonreferring DP either. More precisely, von Fintel argues (contra Strawson, 1964) that there are sentences containing topical non-referring DPs that give rise to judgments of plain falsity. Consider the following example, von Fintel’s (2004) example (15). (4.64) Let me tell you something about my friend, the king of France. I had breakfast with the king of France/him this morning. In the second sentence of this example the king of France/him is topical, because the first sentence establishes the king of France as the sentence topic of the continuing sentence. Yet, so von Fintel argues, the second sentence would be judged as false and not as deviant. But only if the listener accepts the first sentence of (4.64) can the question of judging the second even arise. At the same time, accepting the first sentence would mean assuming that the king of France is the speaker’s friend (and hence exists), which the listener in all likelihood would not do. And if she does not, the continuing sentence cannot be seriously evaluated. So it is actually very difficult to make truth-value judgments on the second sentence in a sequence of sentences where the first sentence is not acceptable. Hence, it actually seems that (4.64) as a sequence is judged as false, but the reason being that the first sentence of this sequence, where the non-referring DP is non-topical, is judged as false and not the second.30 Von Fintel, however, takes this datum as compelling counterevidence against the correlation of topical non-referring DPs and the truth-value gap intuition and proposes a new mechanism (based on Lasersohn, 1993) that is designed to explain the empirical data, i.e. the differing intuitions of speakers concerning whether a sentence is either true or false or whether a sentence lacks a truth-value. The core idea is (very roughly) the following: speakers judge a sentence as false when there are ways of telling that the sentence would be false anyway without making reference to the unfulfilled presupposition. Crucially, this strategy is only available if there is an independent foothold for rejection, which is a contextually salient entity whose intrinsic properties can be shown to be untrue independent of the falsity of the presupposition (for details see von Fintel, 2004). This explains nicely the contrast between the classical examples in (4.65a,b). (4.65)

a. The king of France is bald. b. The exhibition was visited by the king of France.

While (4.65a) does not make available an independent foothold for the rejection of the claim that the king of France is bald, (4.65b) clearly does, namely the exhibition. By investigating the properties of the exhibition one could in principle tell that the property that the king of France visited it is not among the properties this exhibition has. This strategy, however, could not distinguish between the two sentences in (4.59). The intuition is clearly that (4.59a) is false, but (4.59b) is deviant. Under the assumption that the subject is often taken as default-topic, this result is predicted by Strawson’s theory, but certainly not by von Fintel’s, as both sentences communicate the same proposition and, more to the point, both make available an independent ‘foothold’ (the exhibition). Judgments seem to be even stronger in German. 30 A

similar argument is reported in (Schoubye, 2007), credited to Anne Bezuidenhout.


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a. Die Ausstellung in Rom wurde gestern vom König von Frankreich the exhibition

in Rome was

yesterday of the king

of

France

besucht. visited

b.

‘The exhibition in Rome was visited by the king of France yesterday.’ # Der König von Frankreich, der hat gestern die Ausstellung in Rom the king

of

France

RP has yesterdy the exhibition

in Rome

besucht. visited

‘The king of France visited the exhibition in Rome yesterday.’ In (4.66b), der König von Frankreich (the king of France) clearly functions as topic as it is left-dislocated. Consequently, the sentence is judged as deviant. (4.66a) with the non-topical non-referring DP is simply judged as false. I will hence maintain the Strawsonian distinction between topical and non-topical nonreferring expressions and argue that only topical non-referring presuppositional expressions give rise to judgments of ‘squeamishness’. The exact reasons for this will be given in Chapter 6 when I present my approach to exceptional wide scope phenomena. Let me anticipate the main idea at this point: following (Jacobs, 1984), I assume that topics are introduced in a separate act of topic introduction. This introductory act takes place before the declarative speech act that contains the actual content of the assertion. If the act of topic introduction fails, which, for example, is the case when the speaker tries to establish a topic with a presupposition that contradicts the listener’s knowledge, this evokes a feeling of ‘squeamishness’ on the part of the listener. I will not take a stand on what exactly happens with presuppositional non-referring non-topical expressions. There might be other reasons for ‘squeamishness’ than the failure of the topic introduction act and hence sentences containing such expressions might also give rise to truth-value gap judgments. What I will maintain, however, is that a sentence containing a topical non-referring DP that carries an unfulfillable existence presupposition will always evoke a feeling of ‘squeamishness’ on the listener’s part and will not be judged as simply true or false. The full picture now is the following: those definite descriptions that we have been concerned with throughout this section as well as proper names always carry an existence presupposition, which projects up to other levels according to the established presupposition projection rules. Following von Fintel (2004), truth-value intuitions of native speakers do not tell us anything about the actual presence or absence of presuppositions.31 They do, however, (indirectly) say something about the topical status of a presuppositional non-referring DP. If a DP with an unfulfilled presupposition (i.e. a 31 See also (Atlas, 2004) for relevant discussion. Atlas (2004) maintains the topic/non-topic division and argues that only (but not all) topical non-referring expressions give rise to existence presuppositions in their corresponding statements. He is mainly concerned with statements containing non-existence predicates such as The king of France does not exist. It is argued convincingly that in such statements the grammatical subject does not constitute the topic. Hence, even in strong Strawsonian approaches, where it is assumed that statements with topical definites always give rise to existence presuppositions, these sentences would not be predicted to presuppose that the king of France exists and to assert the contrary at the same time – simply because it can be shown on independent grounds that the grammatical subject of sentences with non-existence predicates is non-topical.

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definite or a name) is used as a topic, this will lead to ‘squeamishness’, because the topic-establishing act necessarily fails. The same happens with topical indefinites, but for a different reason. If these indefinites have an empty restriction as in (4.61), the topic act fails and the corresponding sentences are judged as deviant. Hence, (4.61b) is deviant not because there is a presupposition that cannot be fulfilled, but because the restrictor set is empty. In either case, the topic-establishing act fails. I will come back to these issues in Section 6.5.2.

4.6.3

Other Approaches

Like the other authors already discussed in this section, van Geenhoven (1998) and Jäger (2007) explain exceptional wide scope via presupposition accommodation. Van Geenhoven argues that indefinites either denote predicates, which are semantically incorporated by the verb, or they introduce a free variable and these free variable indefinites have to be accommodated. Jäger assumes that specific indefinites are translated as partial variables – variables that come with the restriction that the denotation has to fall under the extension of the indefinite’s NP-complement. Neither Cresti nor Jäger assume that the speaker has to have cognitive contact with the specific indefinite. In order to explain the nature of quantificational variability effects with indefinites, Krifka (2001a) assumes that certain indefinites (so called non-novel indefinites) come with presuppositions that are typically accommodated. Geurts (2002) suggests that there is a close connection between specificity and presupposition projection. The main ideas of Geurts and Yeom are very similar, although superficially there are some striking differences. Geurts does not explicitly propose that specific indefinites presuppose their lexical content. Neither does he assume – he even explicitly contradicts this claim – that there must be some cognitive contact of the speaker or someone else with the indefinite’s witness. His proposal can be summarized as the claim that specific indefinites and presuppositions have a common source: both are background material. Specific indefinites are presented as background information, although they actually carry new information, which is entirely parallel to the use and function of presuppositional items. The decisive principle is the following: backgrounded material wants to be integrated into the context before the rest of the utterance is processed. This principle mirrors the global accommodation tendency of presuppositions and thus explains the wide scope behavior of specific indefinites on very similar grounds as Yeom’s theory. The approach of Schlenker (2005) is a combination of the presuppositional and the domain restriction approaches. Schlenker posits some kind of identifying property for the individuals under discussion (i.e. some kind of implicit restriction) and assumes this identifying property to be presupposed (i.e. it can either be bound by a contextually salient property or accommodated). His main claim is that island-escaping readings and ‘branching readings’, the existence of which was argued for by Hintikka,32 are 32 I refer the reader to the writings of Hintikka and (Schlenker, 2006) for discussion of branching readings. Hintikka’s claim is that there is a reading of (4.67) that requires nonlinear quantification (see Hintikka, 1974).

(4.67) Some relative of each villager and some relative of each townsman hate each other.


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subject to the same interpretation mechanism. He also argues that disjunctions share the same behavior as indefinites: they give rise to exceptional wide scope and probably also branching readings (for further discussion of his approach see below). The theories discussed here explain the exceptional wide scope of indefinites by presupposition resolution. Presupposition projection is a pragmatic phenomenon that is not subject to any island constraints. It is hence predicted that indefinites can scope out of islands via presupposition projection. The difference between maximal and intermediate scope can be captured by global vs. intermediate accommodation of the presupposition. Presuppositions are known to prefer global accommodation over local or intermediate accommodation. Intermediate scope readings are thus predicted to be only a marginal option. The presuppositional approaches predict genuine scope readings (that come about via accommodation). Hence, they can account for all kinds of readings (and not only the functional ones) and thus do not run into the problems discussed for the speaker’s reference and the domain restriction approaches in Sections 4.4 and 4.5. Furthermore, they do better than non-presuppositional approaches when the specific indefinite’s restriction is empty as discussed for (4.58b), because they correctly predict the corresponding sentences to be truthvalueless.

4.6.4

Problems

Accommodation is usually assumed to apply when the common ground c cannot be updated with the information of an utterance φ because φ has a presupposition that is not satisfied in c. The hearer then adjusts the common ground, i.e. changes it minimally, such that c can be updated by φ. Presupposition accommodation is thus conceived of as a repair strategy that applies when binding is not possible. This explains why regular presuppositions prefer to be bound so that no context adjustment is necessary. However, in the approaches discussed here, specific indefinites are assumed to come with a presupposition that necessarily needs to be accommodated. Binding is not an option for the resolution of the presupposition of these indefinites. Accommodation, which is a repair strategy, is the default. This is certainly a problematic assumption as pointed out e.g. by (Geurts, 2002) and (Jäger, 2007). Consider the following example (see van Geenhoven, 1998, p. 197 for a related example). (4.68)

a. If a horse is eating bananas, the horse is happy. b. If a horse is eating bananas, a (specific) horse is happy. c. If [a horse]i is eating bananas, iti is happy.

It is obvious that (4.68a) can mean (4.68c), but (4.68b) cannot. The presupposition of the definite the horse in (4.68a) is bindable by the indefinite a horse in the antecedent of the implication, but the alleged presupposition of the specific indefinite a (specific) horse in (4.68b) is not. The specific indefinite would be understood as referring to a second horse. Krifka (2001a) suggests that the possibility of expressing (4.68c) by (4.68a) blocks the possibility of expressing it by (4.68b). (Jäger, 2007) proposes that all indefinites must be subject to a novelty condition and hence cannot have an anaphoric reading. Although these are plausible assumptions to make, it is still obvious that the existence of a presuppositional expression with the restriction that

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the presupposition can be exclusively interpreted by way of a repair strategy is rather undesirable. Furthermore, the presuppositional approaches offer no solution to the question of why only a small subclass of the indefinites allows for exceptional wide scope. It is mere stipulation that not all sorts of quantifiers allow for a presuppositional treatment. Cresti, who traces back the presuppositional treatment of specific indefinites to their topical status, is only concerned with singular indefinites and hence also cannot explain why only a small subclass of quantifiers allows for a topical interpretation and thus for exceptional wide scope.

4.7 Choice Function Approaches 4.7.1

Reinhart (1997); Winter (1997)

Reinhart (1997) and (Winter, 1997), among others (see especially also the works of Urs Egli and Klaus von Heusinger, e.g. Egli and von Heusinger 1995), argue that an indefinite determiner can be interpreted as denoting a choice function (CF) variable f . Reinhart (1997) assumes that an indefinite is ambiguous between a quantificational and a choice function interpretation (though nothing hinges on this assumption). Winter (1997) proposes that it always denotes a choice function variable. Reinhart and Winter propose that f is bound via existential closure, which can be applied at any position, i.e. the function variable f can be bound by an existential quantifier from any position in the sentence. The indefinite is thereby interpreted in situ. Consider (4.69) to see how the Choice Function mechanism works. (4.69)

a. Every girl likes some horse. b. ∀x[girl (x) → ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ like(x, f (horse))]] c. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ ∀x[girl (x) → like(x, f (horse))]]

A preliminary definition of the choice function predicate CF is as follows.33 Definition 4.1 (Choice Function 1) CF (fhhe,ti,ei ) ↔ ∀Xhe,ti [X 6= ∅ → f (X) ∈ X] The representation in (4.69b) corresponds to the narrow scope reading of some horse, which could be paraphrased as follows: for every girl there is a choice function f such that f , when applied to the set of horses, returns an element of this set, i.e. a horse, for which it is true that the girl likes this horse. (4.69c) shows the wide scope reading of the indefinite, which is: there is a choice function f such that it is true for all girls that they like one element in the set of horses, which is selected by f , namely f (horse). 33 This definition is taken from (Geurts, 2000), which is based on the original definition of Reinhart (1997).


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The Donald Duck problem The main feature of the choice function approach is the in situ interpretation of the indefinite. One of its advantages that is often emphasized is that it predicts the correct truth conditions even in cases where an indefinite seems to take exceptional wide scope out of an if -clause. Consider (4.19c) again, which is repeated below as (4.70). (4.70) If some lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately. The choice function approaches, belonging to the family of unselective binding approaches, can account for the wide scope reading of (4.70) without problems, although their simpler counterparts – unselective binding approaches of individual variables – could not correctly account for these readings without additional assumptions. To make this point, I have to make some general remarks on unselective binding approaches, conditionals, and wide scope readings out of conditionals first. In the approach of (Heim, 1982), indefinites denote free restricted individual variables, i.e. the indefinite some lecturer introduces a restricted variable lecturer (x). This variable is then existentially closed. If it was not prohibited that the variable can be bound via existential closure from outside a conditional, this mechanism would make false predictions. This has been pointed out by various authors (including Heim 1982 herself). (4.71a) would be such an inadequate representation for (4.70) that would follow from wide existential closure of the individual variable x in lecturer (x) from outside the conditional. Instead, (4.71b), where the entire indefinite with its restrictive predicate and not just the existential quantifier takes wide scope over the implication, would yield the correct truth conditions for the wide scope reading of (4.70). (4.71)

a. ∃x[[lecturer (x) ∧ come to party(x)] → leave(I)] b. ∃x[lecturer (x) ∧ [come to party(x) → leave(I)]]

It is easily verifiable that (4.71a) does not yield the correct truth conditions for (4.70) if the conditional is interpreted as a material implication. The pure existence of nonlecturers would make the sentence true, because the antecedent of the implication could be made false by choosing such a non-lecturer as a value for x. This in turn would make the entire formula true. The problem of trivializing truth conditions in the indicated way has been labeled the Donald Duck problem in the literature because choosing Donald Duck as value for x makes the sentence true (under the assumption that Donald Duck does not satisfy the restrictive predicate, i.e. in this case: is not a lecturer). What about (4.71b)? It is generally assumed that it correctly represents the wide scope reading of (4.70). However, this claim has been questioned from time to time, because (4.71b) does not yield the correct truth conditions if the conditional is interpreted as material implication (cf. Dekker, 2002). Let us assume that the speaker knows five lecturers, likes all of them and would not leave the party if one of them came. The wide scope reading of (4.70) is intuitively judged as false in this scenario – also in case none of the lecturers turns up at the party. But the formula in (4.71b) would come out true then because the antecedent of the implication is false: there is a lecturer x and it is not true that x came to the party.

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However, this undesired result is due to the treatment of the conditional as a material implication. If it is treated in a closest world semantics as proposed by Stalnaker, we see that (4.71b) yields the correct results (cf. King, 1988). In the above scenario, we only consider worlds that are like ours except that there is one lecturer that comes to the party. If it was true that the speaker leaves in this case, the sentence would be true. Otherwise, it is false, as desired. As we only consider worlds in which the antecedent is true, the implication cannot be trivialized. We see that (4.71b) gives us the correct truth conditions with this construal of conditionals. Yet, a Stalnakerian interpretation of the conditional does not prevent (4.71a) from representing false truth conditions. In a closest world semantics for the conditional the representation in (4.71a) says the following: there is some individual x – say: Donald Duck – such that in a world most like the actual one except that x is a lecturer who comes to the party, it is also the case that the speaker leaves. This is clearly not what (4.70) says. Hence, the Donald Duck problem is still existent under the assumption of a closest world semantics for conditionals. (4.71a) simply does not represent the correct truth conditions of (4.70) and this cannot be attributed to the treatment of the conditional. Let me now show that the wide scope reading of (4.70), given in (4.72), is correctly represented in the choice function approach, although it is an unselective binding approach. (4.72)

a. If some lecturer comes to the party, I will leave immediately. b. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ [come to party(f (lecturer )) → leave(I)]]

This is the desired wide scope representation for the sentence. In fact, this formula is equivalent to (4.71b), which I have just shown to be the correct representation for the wide scope reading of (4.70) under a reasonable treatment of the conditional. Due to the fact that a choice function is defined as one which returns elements of the argument set only, weak truth conditions are not a problem. In the CF-approach, the free variable f denotes a choice function, which, when applied to a set, returns a member of this set. This means that, although the restrictor set of the indefinite, i.e. the set of lecturers, stays in situ, and the variable f is bound from outside the conditional, the Choice Function mechanism ensures that only the elements of the restrictor set are taken into account as predicate arguments and hence, Donald Duck cannot trivialize the truth conditions. The indefinite itself stays in situ in all readings – in the wide scope as well as in the narrow scope reading and thus remains unmoved. In all readings, the indefinite introduces a choice function variable f , and the different readings result from the different binding positions for f .

The locality of distributivity Recall from the beginning of this chapter that exceptional wide scope readings usually exhibit collective and not distributive wide scope (see e.g. (4.9)). Comparing the choice function approaches with an approach that would rely on the assumption of wide QR, the choice function approach performs well because it predicts that the distributive properties of a weak quantifier stay local when


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the quantifier takes wide scope out of an island. This can be verified by (4.73). Following Winter (1997), the choice function in (4.73) takes sets of plural individuals of three relatives, i.e. Winter (1997) assumes an adjectival treatment of three such that three relatives denotes a set of sets/plural individuals of three relatives. (4.73)

a. If three relatives of mine die I will inherit a fortune. b. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ [die(f (3relatives)) → inherit fortune(I)]]

As the DP three relatives of mine itself stays in situ, even in the wide scope reading, its distributive properties are expected to remain island-restricted, too. This corresponds to the observation that the distributive properties cannot leave the island. The reading can be translated as: there is a choice function f , which when applied to its argument three relatives of mine, returns an element of it, i.e. a group of three relatives of the speaker, and if these relatives die the speaker will inherit a fortune. To be more precise, it means: there are three relatives of the speaker, and if all of them die the speaker will inherit a fortune. The expression all of makes the distribution of the three relatives explicit. In fact, the sentence can be understood to mean that the three relatives die separately and not as a group of three all together in one event. The set of three relatives has to be distributed over the verb phrase, stating that each member of the set fulfills the predicate.

Intermediate scope Being an existential closure mechanism, the choice function approach can easily explain the wide scope behavior of indefinites without assuming unrestricted movement. This approach can also account for the intermediate scope readings of indefinites. Take example (4.29), repeated below as (4.74a). The choice function representations are given in (4.74b-d). (4.74)

a. Every student has announced that he will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up. b. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ ∀x[student(x) → announce(x, show up(f (lecturer )) → leave party(x))]] c. ∀x[student(x) → announce(x, ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ show up(f (lecturer )) → leave party(x)])] d. ∀x[student(x) → ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ announce(x, show up(f (lecturer )) → leave party(x))]]

The representations in (4.74b–d) show the three readings of (4.74a) in Reinhart’s formulation of the choice function mechanism. (4.74b) shows the wide scope reading, (4.74c) the narrow scope reading, and (4.74d) the intermediate scope reading. Reinhart’s assumption that choice functions can be existentially closed at any position can account for the intermediate scope readings such as represented in (4.74d).

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4.7.2


Kratzer (1998)

In light of the discussion in the previous sections and chapters, Kratzer’s (1998) proposal is the one best equipped to account for exceptional wide scope phenomena because it can handle the widest range of – even very subtle, but nonetheless real – data. I will therefore discuss it in more detail than the other approaches I outlined above. However, we will see below that there are still some problems left that this approach is exposed to, in particular the fact that the existence of choice functions and their application to only a subset of the indefinites is not motivated on independent grounds. Concerning the empirical range of Kratzer’s proposal, it seems to cover about the same as my own approach, which I will outline in the next chapters. Kratzer (1998) starts from Fodor and Sag’s original claim that indefinites do not scope freely and that they are ambiguous between two interpretations – a quantificational one and a ‘specific’ (in Fodor and Sag’s term: a ‘referential’) one. For this reason, she argues against the unlimited generation of genuine intermediate scope readings. She expands the notion of referentiality so as to cover functional readings, too. She points out that the apparent intermediate scope reading of (4.27), repeated below as (4.75b), is in fact a functional reading due to the pronoun his, which is part of the DP some student of his. For this reason, she predicts a contrast for the following pair of sentences. (4.75)

a. Each teacher overheard the rumor that some student of mine had been called before the dean. b. Each teacheri overheard the rumor that some student of hisi had been called before the dean.

While an intermediate scope reading is easily available for (4.75b), it is not for (4.75a). Whenever an indefinite contains a bound pronoun, a functional interpretation, and thus an apparent intermediate scope reading, is predicted. Kratzer concludes from these facts that, in principle, Fodor and Sag are right and that their approach – modulo an extension to handle functional expressions – is the correct one to account for wide scope indefinites. Like (Reinhart, 1997), Kratzer suggests that specific indefinites are interpreted via choice functions. But unlike Reinhart, Kratzer takes it that these choice functions are left unbound such that their value is contextually determined. They are not existentially bound via existential closure at any level. If existential closure were allowed at any level, one could not account for the fact that (4.75b) easily allows for a co-variation reading, but (4.75a) does not. Kratzer therefore follows (Fodor and Sag, 1982) in the assumption that ordinary indefinites are ambiguous between a referential (specific) interpretation and a quantificational one. Narrow scope readings are derived via the usual quantificational construal and not via existential closure of the choice functional variable below some c-commanding quantifier. A very similar proposal is made by Matthewson (1999) for the analysis of a certain class of indefinites in St’át’imcets (a Lillooet Salish language). She argues that Kratzer’s assumption that indefinites in English are ambiguous between a choice


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function and a quantificational interpretation is evidenced by the fact that St’át’imcets overtly encodes this ambiguity. According to her, there is a certain marker that enforces a choice function interpretation in this language, and a different one that imposes a quantificational treatment. She follows Kratzer in her assumption that choice functions cannot be closed at just any level. But Matthewson holds the view that the choice function variables should not be left unbound to be contextually resolved as Kratzer proposes, but rather existentially closed at the top-level. We will see in the next section that this assumption indeed makes slightly different predictions than Kratzer’s approach. Going back to Kratzer’s approach, Kratzer shows that choice functions can be dependent on some other value. Such dependent readings can either be triggered by overt bound pronouns built in the argument of the choice function or by covert implicit arguments of adjectives such as certain. Kratzer asserts that these are context sensitive as they introduce an argument that has to be contextually bound to the person that is in the position to identify the referent of the corresponding indefinite it modifies. In (4.75b), the choice function is dependent on the quantifier each teacher that binds the pronoun his. The representations of (4.75a,b) are given in (4.76a) and (4.76b), respectively. (4.76)

a. ∀x[teacher (x) → overhear (x, send to dean(f (student of mine))] b. ∀x[teacher (x) → overhear (x, send to dean(fx (student of x))]

The choice function fx is a parameterized choice function, i.e. a choice function that is dependent on some quantifier that binds the variable x. This function is only defined for application to a set of students of x. fx (student of x) may then yield different values for different choices of teachers x. It is thereby dependent on the GQ each teacher. In the case of (4.76a), f (student of mine) always yields the same value because the argument student of mine is not dependent on the GQ each teacher. Hence, there is the impression of an intermediate scope reading for (4.75b), but not for (4.75a). The missing intermediate scope reading of (4.75a) as opposed to (4.75b) is Kratzer’s main argument against a treatment of exceptional wide and intermediate scope readings of indefinites in the way proposed by Reinhart and Winter. The Reinhart/Winterapproach predicts readings that do not exist, i.e. it overgenerates.34 There is an additional argument in favour of her treatment of (functional) wide scope, which was brought up by Chierchia (2001) (who notes that Jason Stanley made a similar point at the 99 Cornell Conference on Pragmatics)35 : indefinites allowing for an (apparent) 34 Note that Reinhart and Winter acknowledge the fact that sometimes intermediate scope readings seem to be absent. However, they take it that this is only an impression one may have when the widest scope reading is very salient. The prediction is that intermediate scope readings should always be possible when the widest scope and narrow reading both lead to implausible readings. We will see in Section 6.5 (e.g. (6.70) and (6.72)) that this prediction is not borne out, in fact. 35 Chierchia (2001) assumes that wide scope indefinites are exclusively interpreted via choice functions and that the choice function approaches of Reinhart, Winter, and Kratzer have to be combined such that indefinites, when interpreted via choice functions, have a hidden parameter and the function variable is not left unbound, but is existentially closed. Furthermore, restrictions have to be imposed on the binding position of the function variable, namely that the function variable is either closed at the topmost level (if no argument of it is bound by an operator) or it is existentially bound inside the scope of every operator binding the (hidden) variable in the restrictor of the respective indefinite (for details see Chierchia, 2001). Interestingly,

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intermediate scope reading are subject to weak crossover. Consider the contrast between (4.77a) and (4.77b) pointed out in (Chierchia, 2001, ex. (48a) and (49a), p. 73). (4.77)

a. Every student was examined by every professor competent in some problem. b. Every professor competent in some problem examined every student. c. ∗ every studenti [every professor competent in some problem (dependent on himi )]j [tj examined ti ]

(4.77a) clearly allows for an (apparent) intermediate scope reading, where the problems vary with the students, i.e. the reading: for every student there is a particular problem (e.g. the one chosen by the student) such that every professor who is competent in it examines the student. (4.77b), on the other hand, lacks such a reading. Chierchia convincingly explains this as a weak crossover-effect. Kratzer argues that for the intermediate scope reading to arise, the indefinite some problem has to contain a variable that is bound by every student. To bind the variable in (4.77b), the DP every student has to be raised over the indefinite as indicated in (4.77c). The configuration in (4.77c) constitutes a clear case of a weak crossover violation, where a binding operator has been raised over a co-indexed variable. In other words, the unavailability of an intermediate scope reading for (4.77b) is due to the same constraint that rules out a bound reading for his in (4.78). (4.78) ∗ Hisi mother loves everyonei . This is a strong argument for the Kratzerian treatment of (functional) wide scope indefinites. In the Reinhart/Winter framework, there would be no reason why every student should not be raised over every professor competent in some problem in (4.77b) because the indefinite some problem would not be assumed to contain a variable. It simply introduces a choice function variable, which can be existentially bound from any arbitrary position, surely also from a position directly above every professor, but below the position of every student after movement had taken place. Hence, the Reinhart/Winter approach would predict an intermediate scope reading for (4.77b), which does not exist. The observed asymmetry would remain entirely unexplained. There is a further argument for a parameterized choice functional treatment of wide scope indefinites as proposed by Kratzer, which was brought up by Schlenker (2006). Sometimes, the wide scope indefinite seems to take wider scope than the binder of a variable in its restrictor (see Schlenker, 2006, ex. (20), p. 297, laid out below as example (4.79a)). Note that Schlenker does not differentiate between indefinites taking genuine wide scope and specific indefinites, which are overtly marked as specific by certain. In the following example, it is immaterial whether a certain friend of his is analyzed as specific (and thus as taking wide scope over a tacit epistemic operator and hence also over the if -clause) or interpreted as simply marked for wide scope, which would also mean that it would have to take wide scope over the if -clause. What is essential is that a certain friend cannot take plain narrow scope. these assumptions account correctly for – what I call – genuine exceptional wide and intermediate scope readings, but, if I see it correctly, fail to derive the often marginal, but yet existent, wide scope functional readings – as e.g. the one pointed out for example (4.49).


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a. If [each of my guests]i comes with a certain friend of hisi , the party will be a disaster. b. ∀x[guest(x) → come with(x, fx (friend of (x)))] → disaster

The sentence seems to say that there is a certain way of associating each guest with a friend of his such that if each guest comes with this friend, the party will be a disaster. An ordinary wide scope reading is excluded for (4.79a) because the pronoun his could not be bound to each of my guests in this case. But the reading I just outlined is clearly not an ordinary narrow scope reading either, which would say that the party will be a disaster if each guest brings along some friend or other. It has to be a functional wide scope reading, which is easily accounted for in a parameterized choice function approach as shown in (4.79b).36

Intermediate scope readings with because-clauses In effect, Kratzer’s approach predicts that DPs not containing bound pronouns allow for intermediate scope only marginally – except when a dependent interpretation can be assumed. The availability or non-availability of intermediate scope readings depends on how easily such a dependent interpretation can be accommodated. Relational nouns such as lecturer, for example, can easily receive a functional interpretation, e.g. where every lecturer depends on some student (lecturer of him). Thus, example (4.29), repeated as (4.80), can be argued to receive an intermediate scope reading due to the reinterpretation of some lecturer as a DP containing some implicit dependent argument. (4.80) Every student has announced that he will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up. In the case of (4.28), repeated as (4.81), one could also argue that such a pronoun can be accommodated and the DP some problem actually denotes something like some problem that they are interested in, where they is bound by most linguists. (4.81) Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem. However, it can be shown that both sentences (4.81) as well as (4.80) actually support a genuine intermediate scope reading, which has to be derived via a scope mechanism and cannot be reduced to a functional reading. This is because they support a reading that can be best captured by the continuations in (4.82a) and (4.82b), respectively. 36 As far as I can see, this reading would be another example of a reading that is not deriveable in Chierchia’s approach (see footnote 35). In the desired reading, the function f would have to be existentially closed outside of the if -clause. Otherwise it would lead to too strong truth conditions, namely the following: if there is a function h and for each of my guests x the friend of x that is picked by h comes, the party will be a disaster ≈ whatever friend comes, the party will be a disaster. This means that, for a correct representation, the existential quantifier cannot be in the scope of the binding quantifier each of my guests. But all such configurations are explicitly ruled out in Chierchia’s system.

160 (4.82)

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS a. A geht, wenn Dozent A’ erscheint; B, wenn B’ erscheint; C, wenn C’ A goes if

lecturer A’ appears

B if

B’ appears

C if

C’

erscheint, ... appears

‘A will go if lecturer A’ appears, B if B’ appears, C if C’ appears...’ b. For linguist A it is antecedent contained deletion, for linguist B it is binding and for linguist C it is conditionals. Both continuations are pair-list elaborations. We have seen in Section 3.3 that these kinds of elaborations indicate that the intermediate scope reading is a genuine scope reading and not a functional reading. Besides this, Kratzer notes herself that sometimes intermediate scope readings are easily available even though no dependent element can be accommodated. Consider the following example from (Kratzer, 1998) (a slightly modified version of an example from Abusch, 1994). (4.83) Everyone of them moved to Stuttgart because some woman lived there. Sentence (4.83) can receive an intermediate scope reading without problems. In fact, the most prominent reading is one that states that for each x of a contextually salient set there exists a woman such that this woman was the reason for this x to move to Stuttgart. Kratzer admits that one would have a hard time arguing for a hidden function in this case. She therefore proposes that here, the intermediate scope reading has no functional origin, but comes about by other means. She argues that causal statements involve the (causal) relation of two events and are a source of specificity by themselves. She points out that causal statements allow for transparent and opaque readings as exemplified by (4.84a) and (4.84b), respectively (from Kratzer, 1998, p. 174). (4.84)

a. I fell because the principal did. b. I went to the pageant because the principal did.

In the case of (4.84a), a transparent reading is very prominent. The sentence is understood in the following way: the principal fell and knocked the speaker over when falling down. Clearly, if Peter Miller is the principal, the statement I fell because Peter Miller did is true in exactly the same contexts as (4.84a) is. In other words, the fallingevent of the principal e directly causes the speaker’s falling e′ . (4.84b) illustrates the opaque reading of because. Here, the reason for the speaker’s going to the pageant is that the principal will be there – whoever the principal might be. The speaker might not even know that Peter Miller is the principle. Therefore the sentence I went to the pageant because Peter Miller did might be false, even if (4.84b) is true. What this shows is that some kind of opacity is involved. The speaker’s reason for going to the pageant is somehow influenced by the event e′′ that the principal goes there, too, but the event e′′ does not directly cause an event e′′′ , which is that the speaker goes to the pageant. Kratzer points to other peculiar properties of because-clauses: they allow for specific readings of bare plurals, although bare plurals usually take narrow scope and certainly cannot scope out of scope islands (illustrated in (4.85)); and furthermore the determiner one, which seems to behave quite similarly to some in many contexts, shows a different behavior in the context of because-clauses (shown in (4.86)).


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a. Paul finished his project because teachers of mine helped him. (modified version of an example from Kratzer, 1998, p. 172) b. I will leave the party immediately if teachers of mine show up.

(4.85a) clearly has a reading where Paul finished his project because some specific teachers of the speaker helped him, not just because of the simple fact that teachers of the speaker – irrespective of their identity – helped him. (4.85b) on the other hand only supports a narrow scope reading for the bare plural teachers of mine and thereby states that the speaker will leave the party as soon as teachers of the speaker – whoever they might be – turn up. Now consider the following example. (4.86)

a. Everyone announced that he will leave the party immediately if one/some teacher shows up. b. Everyone of them is moving to Stuttgart because some woman lives there. (from Kratzer, 1998, p. 172) c. Everyone of them is moving to Stuttgart because one woman lives there. (from Kratzer, 1998, p. 172)

Sentence (4.86a) is ambiguous between a wide scope, an intermediate, and a narrow scope reading for the indefinite, independently of the fact whether the determiner some or one is used. In the context of a because-clause, however, the two indefinites behave differently. While an intermediate scope reading is easily available for (4.86b), sentence (4.86c) only allows for a wide scope reading (or the very strange narrow scope reading that everyone moved to Stuttgart because the city is inhabited by only one woman). The three readings that (4.86b) has are all explained by Kratzer without involving any movement operation. In all three cases, the indefinite stays in situ, i.e. the wide and intermediate ‘scope’ readings are both analysed as pseudoscope readings. The widest ‘scope’ reading is brought about by the choice function interpretation explicated above. The intermediate ‘scope’ reading, where everyone went to Stuttgart because of some particular, but possibly different woman, is explained by the transparent reading of because, i.e. each person’s moving to Stuttgart e is directly caused by a particular eventuality e′ that involves some (particular) woman living there. This is the same as saying that for each person’s moving to Stuttgart e there was a particular woman whose living in Stuttgart caused e. The (very unlikely) narrow scope reading is explained by the opaque interpretation of because: the reason for everyone to move to Stuttgart is that Stuttgart is not women-less. No one would have moved to Stuttgart if there weren’t any women living in Stuttgart, too. It remains to be shown why (4.86c) does not have the intermediate ‘scope’ reading. Kratzer argues that one has to be interpreted as denoting exactly one. She implements her analysis in an event semantics framework, which yields other desired results in cases where intermediate scope readings with one seem to be possible. I will set aside this complication here and just point out the main results of Kratzer’s analysis without going into the details of her approach. Let us consider what the transparent reading of because (which was argued to bring about

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the intermediate ‘scope’ reading in the case of (4.86b)) looks like for (4.86c): each person’s moving to Stuttgart e is directly caused by a particular eventuality e′ that involves exactly one woman living in Stuttgart. In other words, this reading implies that Stuttgart is inhabited by only one woman. This reading is (almost) equivalent to the opaque reading of because for (4.86c): the reason for everyone to move to Stuttgart is that Stuttgart is inhabited by exactly one woman. In this case, the opaque and transparent readings collapse and hence there is the impression that the sentence only has two readings: the one I just pointed out and a widest ‘scope’ reading derived via the choice function interpretation. From this we can learn that because-clauses exhibit a source of specificity of their own. As I pointed out in the preceding chapter, I do not want to take a stand on the best analysis of specific readings. In other words, the mechanism that Kratzer proposes to derive the apparent intermediate scope reading for (4.86b) is independent of my own proposal for genuine exceptional wide and intermediate scope readings. But it should be taken for granted that causal statements must involve some source of specificity. According to the above reasoning, this is further evidenced by the fact that in (4.87) a specific interpretation for the simple indefinite eine Frau (a woman) is available even if the indefinite appears in its slim and not in its emphatic version. In the following examples in German and English, the involved indefinites then do not take wide scope over the because-clause, but receive a specific interpretation due to some specificity interpretation mechanism. (4.87)

a. Peter geht u¨ brigens nach Stuttgart, weil Peter goes by-the-way to

eine FRAU dort wohnt.

Stuttgart because a

woman there lives

‘Peter is moving to Stuttgart by the way, because a woman lives there.’ b. Jeder von ihnen geht u¨ brigens nach Stuttgart, weil eine FRAU every of

them goes by-the-way to

Stuttgart because a

woman

dort wohnt. there lives

‘Everyone of them is moving to Stuttgart by the way, because a woman lives there.’ c. Peter is moving to Stuttgart because a woman lives there. d. Everyone of them is moving to Stuttgart because a woman lives there. (4.87a) has a prominent specific reading for the indefinite eine Frau (a woman), as it is very unlikely that Peter will move to Stuttgart because Stuttgart is not women-less. (4.87b) also might have a marginal widest ‘scope’ specific reading, where everyone will move to Stuttgart because some specific woman – let’s call her Arabella – lives there. But it definitely has a specific intermediate ‘scope’ reading saying that, for everyone there exists a specific woman such that he will move to Stuttgart because this woman lives there. Again, a genuine narrow scope reading is very unlikely and hence more or less unavailable. (4.87c,d) have the same readings as (4.87a,b), respectively. We know that because-clauses are scope islands; thus no local scope inversion mechanism could be responsible for a wide scope reading of the slim indefinites in (4.87). But as we have seen, the only mechanism that evokes genuine wide scope out of syntactic island (my mechanism M) usually takes emphatic indefinites as arguments, when


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simple indefinites with very light NP-complements are involved (cf. examples (4.17) and (4.18)). The conclusion I draw from this is that the wide and intermediate scope readings of (4.87) are only apparent, due to the fact that because-clauses evoke some kind of opacity, which is responsible for a specific/unspecific ambiguity. My assumptions are confirmed by the fact that the intermediate reading disappears (or is very marginal) if the indefinite shows up in its emphatic version. (4.88) Jeder von ihnen geht u¨ brigens nach Stuttgart, weil every of

them goes by-the-way to

↑EIne Frau

dort

Stuttgart because some woman there

wohnt. lives

‘Everyone of them will move to Stuttgart by the way, because some woman lives there.’ The emphatic indefinite is interpreted via the mechanism M. As will be shown in subsequent chapters, an interpretation via this mechanism derives a wide scope reading of the indefinite, i.e. wide scope over all other operators. Therefore, (4.88) is predicted to lack an intermediate scope reading.37

Intermediate scope readings in attitude contexts In the last section of Kratzer’s article she extends her analysis of specificity from because-clauses to attitude contexts in general. Consider (4.89) (from Kratzer, 1998, p. 185). (4.89) Everyone of them suspected that some doctor from the hospital was a quack. (4.89) has an intermediate scope reading, which says that for every person x there is some doctor y in the hospital such that x suspects that y is a quack. Kratzer acknowledges that there is no salient function that could explain the easy availability of this intermediate scope reading, just as was the case for example (4.83) above; and she assumes that the source of this intermediate scope reading is a de re reading of an eventuality (i.e. the res-argument of the involved attitude verb, here: suspected ), into which the existence of the indefinite under discussion has been accommodated. Such a de re interpretation comes about, Kratzer argues, because certain indefinites have a reading in which they are associated with presuppositions stating that there is an entity satisfying their restrictive predicate. Leaving aside the details of Kratzer’s analysis, we can say that this intermediate ‘scope’ reading of (4.89) is a specific reading that can come about in the context of attitude verbs such as to suspect. Hence, Kratzer subscribes to the view that this reading neither comes about via a scope meachanism nor by a choice function interpretation. An interesting question that arises, which is not elaborated in (Kratzer, 1998), is which kinds of indefinites can be taken to be presuppositional and hence give rise to apparent 37 To reconstruct this judgment, it is important to keep apart the genuine intermediate scope reading (testable by a continuing pair-list enumeration), which the sentence is claimed not to have, and a functional wide scope reading, where the intended function could be the woman that the respective person adores, which the sentence might have in certain contexts.

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intermediate scope readings. Example (4.89) shows that Kratzer has to assume that at least some-indefinites allow for a presuppositional treatment, because the sentence has an intermediate ‘scope’ reading. However, a translation into German shows that the indefinite does not have to be emphatic. The slim indefinite ein ARZT aus dem KRANkenhaus (a doctor from the hospital) in (4.90) allows for at least the intermediate scope reading (maybe also the wide scope reading), although this indefinite is embedded in a scope island (the finite clause complement of vermuten (to suspect)). (4.90) Jeder von ihnen vermutete, dass ein ARZT aus dem KRANkenhaus ein every of

them suspected

that a

doctor from the hospital

a

Quacksalber war. quack

was

‘Everyone of them suspected that a doctor from the hospital was a quack.’ Sentence (4.90) receives an apparent intermediate scope reading quite easily (which can be considered a specific reading with respect to the verb vermuten (suspect)). A(n apparent) widest scope reading is harder to get, which is expected under the assumption that this would involve the introduction of a covert epistemic operator such as I know, which embeds the entire sentence. However, as predicted, substituting the slim indefinite in (4.90) with an emphatic one, makes the widest scope reading easily available, while the intermediate scope reading is still prominent.38 (4.91) Jeder von ihnen vermutete, dass ↑EIN Arzt aus dem Krankenhaus ein Every of

them suspected

that

some doctor from the hospital

a

Quacksalber war. quack

was

‘Everyone of them suspected that some doctor from the hospital was a quack.’ In Kratzer’s reasoning it follows that both emphatic and slim indefinites must be interpretable as presuppositional. Otherwise the intermediate scope reading of (4.90) and (4.91) could not be accounted for. Additionally, it would have to be assumed that only emphatic indefinites are interpretable by choice functions (or at least allow for a choice function interpretation much more easily) because otherwise the easy availability of a wide ‘scope’ interpretation in (4.91) as opposed to (4.90) would remain a mystery. The exact predictions that this theory makes are rather difficult to assess and therefore hard to verify or falsify. The reader might want to understand my own theory, that I will propose in the following chapters, as an alternative way to explain a set of facts some (or maybe even all) of which might also be derivable in Kratzer’s theory. The theory makes precise predictions, which can easily be tested when taking into account the relevant data. 38 In this respect, example (4.91) is different from example (4.88), which does not support an intermediate scope reading when the indefinite is realized emphatically. I will show in Section 6.5 that this difference directly falls out from my approach to exceptional wide scope phenomena. I will argue that emphatic indefinites have to take wide scope with respect to their topic-comment structure embedding operator. If vermuten (to suspect) is interpreted as a topic-comment structure embedding verb, it is expected that the emphatic indefinite can take wide scope only with respect to this verb and hence intermediate scope in (4.91). In (4.88) however, there is no such operator. Hence, the indefinite can only take widest scope.


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I will present my account in Chapter 6 and discuss a number of relevant examples at that point. Summing up, Kratzer’s approach supports Fodor and Sag’s original claim that indefinites are lexically ambiguous between a quantificational and a referential interpretation. If the indefinite receives its quantificational meaning, it obeys the usual locality scope constraints. Apparent exceptional wide scope readings, i.e. ones where the indefinite seems to violate a scope constraint, are, in fact, (sometimes functionally dependent) referential readings. Most instances of apparent intermediate wide scope readings are functional readings that come about via a parameterized choice function interpretation; they are not scope phenomena, but examples of so-called pseudoscope. Other apparent scope violations that cannot be seen as functional readings come about as a result of de re interpretations in the context of attitude verbs or because-clauses.

4.7.3

Problems

The choice function approaches are prone to different kinds of empirical and theoretical problems. I refer the reader to (Ruys, 1999), (Geurts, 2000), (von Stechow, 2000), and (Endriss, 2002) for further discussion. Let me just mention the most severe problems here. Grammatic-theoretical problems of the choice function approaches The choice function approaches assume two different mechanisms to be responsible for interpreting quantificational DPs: the choice function mechanism, which applies to a certain subclass of the weak quantifier phrases only, namely the wide scope quantifiers, and the usual QR-mechanism, which applies to all remaining quantificational DPs. There is no obvious semantic or morphosyntactic feature which separates these two classes from each other. The class of quantifiers that the choice function mechanism applies to has to be defined by stipulation.39 In the choice function approaches, it remains an unexplained fact that only a small subclass of the weak quantifiers is subject to the choice function interpretation mechanism and that hence only the elements of this class support exceptional wide scope. Empirical problems of the choice function approaches Let me start this section by pointing to the general drawback of the choice function approaches: what seems to be their main advantage – i.e. that they can account for the exceptional wide scope of indefinites by an interpretation mechanism that leaves the indefinite in situ, thus avoiding the unpopular assumption of island-free QR – also seems to be their main disadvantage. It is exactly this in situ interpretation property 39 The difference between modified numerals and unmodified ones can be captured in syntactic terms, which is done in (Reinhart, 1997) (see Section 6.1). However, this does not yet explain the difference between e.g. few N and several N, where the second can and the first cannot be interpreted with exceptional wide scope and thus only the second should allow for a choice function interpretation.

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that leads to various unwanted effects. Some of the problems I will point out below are not shared by all variants of the choice function approaches. To be precise, the approach of Kratzer (1998) does not share most of the problems the other choice function approaches have to face. In the last subsection of this section I will discuss the problems that Kratzer’s approach is subject to. The following problem is discussed in (Schlenker, 2005). One (intended) effect of interpreting wide scope indefinites via choice functions is that the existential force is interpreted outside the scope island, while the restriction without the existential quantifier stays in situ. In the choice function approaches there is hence no reason why (4.92a) is ungrammatical, whereas (4.92b) is not.40 The choice function representation for (4.92b) is given in (4.92c). (4.92)

a. ∗ If there is John at the party, the party will be a disaster. b. If there is a certain philosopher at the party, the party will be a disaster. c. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ at party(f (philosopher )) → disaster ]

It is known that existential there-sentences exclude referential items after the copula, which is why (4.92a) is ungrammatical. Specific indefinites, on the other hand, are allowed in these constructions as is shown in (4.92b). However, in the choice function approaches the grammaticality of (4.92b) is entirely unexpected as f (philosopher ) denotes an entity of type e, just like referential items do, which should be excluded from this construction. On a more technical note, severe problems arise with the choice function definition as given in Definition 4.2, which I repeat below. Definition 4.2 (Choice Function 1) CF (fhhe,ti,ei ) ↔ ∀Xhe,ti [X 6= ∅ → f (X) ∈ X] So far, we have presupposed that the restriction of an indefinite denotes a non-empty set. This assumption, of course, does not hold in general. Definition 4.2 would make all those sentences trivially true where the choice function is applied to an argument with empty restrictor set, as long as there is one element in the universe which fulfills the sentence predicate. I will demonstrate this by way of example (4.93). (4.93)

a. A green horse ate all the bananas. b. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ ∀x[bananas(x) → eat(f (green horse), x)]]

Formula (4.93b) would be true according to Definition 4.2 under the assumption that no green horses exist and some other element satisfies the sentence predicate ate all the bananas. This contradicts our intuitions. If there are no green horses, no such horse could have possibly eaten all the bananas. But in this case, the antecedent X 6= ∅ of Definition 4.2 is false. The conclusion is thus arbitrary and f (X) can denote any object. The choice function f can therefore be chosen as denoting a function which returns anything (not necessarily a green horse) that has eaten all the bananas. Thus, 40 Even

if for some speakers (4.92b) is not fully acceptable it is at least much better than (4.92a).


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the sentence could be understood as meaning Someone/Something ate all the bananas, which is not the intended reading. I will refer to this problem as the empty set problem. All proponents of the choice function approaches are aware of the empty set problem and suggest different means to overcome this problem. A slight amendment of the original Definition 4.2, shown as Definition 4.3, already seems to do the job41 : Definition 4.3 (Choice Function 2) CF (fhhe,ti,ei ) ↔ ∀Xhe,ti [[X 6= ∅ → f (X) ∈ X] ∧ [X = ∅ → f (X) = ∗]], where the symbol * denotes a special object which does not satisfy any predicate, i.e. the following holds for every n-ary predicate P : if ai = ∗ for any 1 ≤ i ≤ n, then ha1 , . . . , an i is not in the extension of P . This definition can handle the problem of the empty set. According to the definition, the individual predication becomes false when the argument set is empty. Reinhart tentatively suggests making use of partial functions such that a sentence such as (4.93a) would come out as undefined under the wide scope reading. (Winter, 1997, p. 437) proposes lifting the type of the choice function in order to solve the empty set problem. Definition 4.4 (Choice Function 3) (4.94) CF (fhhe,ti,hhe,ti,tii ) ↔ ∀Xhe,ti [X 6= ∅ → ∃xe [X(x) ∧ f (X) = λPhe,ti .P (x)]] ∧ f (∅he,ti ) = ∅hhe,ti,ti The choice function takes a set as its argument and returns a generalized quantifier corresponding to the element instead of the element itself: the element is type-lifted to a GQ of type hhe, ti, ti. In case the argument set is empty, the choice function returns the empty generalized quantifier which then, applied to the predicate, makes the sentence false. Having fixed the empty set problem, the in situ interpretation of the (restrictor set of the) indefinite still leads to various other unwanted effects as pointed out e.g. in (Ruys, 1999; Geurts, 2000; von Stechow, 2000; Endriss, 2002). Once again, it can be said that although the in situ interpretation is the main feature of all choice function approaches, it is exactly this feature which leads to all the empirically unwanted effects. In other words, all the problems are theory-dependent: they arise from the in situ interpretation of the indefinite. In a way, they are new instances of the Donald Duck problem. In the end, just like the original Donald Duck problem, the problems arise because the restriction is left in situ and binding takes place from a distant position. We have already encountered one severe problem in Section 3.3.4 under the label Reniers problem. Let us first consider a moderate instance of the Reniers problem, which has been discussed e.g. by (Winter, 1997), (Kratzer, 1998), and (Geurts, 2000). The following example is from (Geurts, 2000). 41 This

definition is taken from (Geurts, 2000, p. 3).

168 (4.95)

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS a. Every girl gave a flower to a boy she fancied. b. ∀x[girl (x) → ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ give flower (x, f (λy[boy(y) ∧ fancy(x, y)]))]] c. ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ ∀x[girl (x) → give flower (x, f (λy[boy(y) ∧ fancy(x, y)]))]]

The formula in (4.95b) represents the narrow scope reading of the sentence: for every girl there exists a choice function f which, when applied to a set of boys whom the girl under discussion fancies, chooses one member of this set and every girl gave a flower to this chosen element. The problem now is that nothing prevents the choice function approaches from also deriving a wide scope representation for this sentence which is shown in (4.95c). This alleged wide scope reading however does not exist for the sentence. The choice function approach overgenerates. The formula in (4.95c) has to be interpreted in the following way: whenever there is a group of girls who happen to fancy the same boys they must have given a flower to the same boy out of the set of the boys they fancy. The choice function f , which is bound at the outermost position, cannot vary with the girls. When there are several girls x who fancy the same group of boys, the argument of f , i.e. λy[boy(y) ∧ fancied (x , y)], is the same for each of these girls. Because f is a function, it cannot yield different results when applied to the same argument. That is, if Miriam and Anne happen to fancy exactly the same group of boys, say Peter, John, and Chris, this representation states that both Anne and Miriam must have given a flower to the same boy, e.g. Peter. But this is obviously not a distinct reading for the sentence. A movement analysis would not predict a wide scope reading in the first place – that is, if one supposes that pronoun binding has to hold on the level of LF. If the DP a boy she fancied was moved to a position where it takes scope over the rest of the sentence, the pronoun she would not be bound. The representation would thus be ruled out for a bound pronoun interpretation. The wide scope reading could only be derived if she was interpreted as a free pronoun. Kratzer’s approach does not run into this problem, because in her conception choice functions are not only applied to their set argument, but – in certain contexts – they can have an additional argument, which is bound by a quantifier. This results in a parameterized choice function. In the case of (4.95), this extra argument is triggered by the pronoun she, which expresses some kind of dependence on the binder of this pronoun, i.e. every girl. The existence of an extra argument results in the choice function’s dependence on the respective values of that additional argument. The representation for (4.95) reads as follows in Kratzer’s framework (recall that choice function variables are not existentially bound in Kratzer’s framework, but remain free and are interpreted by context): (4.96) ∀x[girl (x) → give flower (x, fx (λy[boy(y) ∧ fancy(x, y)]))] As f is now dependent on the quantifier every girl via the variable x, the choice function can return different results for different values of x, even if the set λy[boy(y) ∧ fancied (x, y)] is the same for these x. The unwanted wide scope reading is ruled out. If parameterized choice functions are generally allowed for, also the approaches


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of Reinhart and Winter do not run into the Reniers problem, as their frameworks thus amended would yield the following unproblematic representation, which would not differ substantially from the one derived in Kratzer’s framework. (4.97) ∃f [CF (f ) ∧ ∀x[girl (x) → give flower (x, fx (λy[boy(y) ∧ fancy(x, y)]))]] However, Winter proposes overcoming the problem of the embedded bound pronoun by using intensional choice functions. The argument of an intensional choice function then has to be an intensional property. This would mean that the intensional property (λy[boy(y) ∧ fancied (x, y)])′ can vary with different values assigned to x even if the extension of this set, evaluated in the current world, is the same for all those girls x under discussion. The intension makes this difference possible as there might be different worlds in which the sets of fancied boys are different for every girl x. The non-existent wide scope reading would then not be predicted by the CF approach either. But, as (Geurts, 2000) notes, it seems implausible that intensional choice functions should be used in completely extensional contexts. Even if the above instance of the Reniers problem can be solved, Reniers (1997) came up with a convincing argument that the proposed solution strategy cannot solve the problem in its general shape. In downward entailing contexts, the truth conditions of the choice functional representations are too weak.42 Recall example (3.77) from Chapter 3, a minimal variant of which is shown in (4.98a). (4.98b,c) indicate the wide scope choice function analysis and the narrow scope reading, respectively. (4.98a) most prominently has the reading in (4.98c). But under the assumption that indefinite noun phrases generally allow for a choice function interpretation, the formula in (4.98b) would be a legitimate translation of (4.98a) in Reinhart’s, Winter’s, and Matthewson’s system (extended to parameterized choice functions) and should represent some kind of wide scope reading of the sentence. (4.98)

a. No mani hates a woman hei went to school with. b. ∃f [CF (f )∧¬∃x[man(x)∧hate(x, fx (wom x went to sch with))]] c. ¬∃x[man(x) ∧ ∃y[wom x went to sch with(y) ∧ hate(x, y)]]

It is easy to see that the truth conditions of (4.98b) are hopelessly weak and that (4.98a) certainly does not have such a weak reading – at least if no restrictions are imposed on the possible interpretation domain of the functions f , which is not done in the original choice function approaches. In a model in which it is false that no man hates a woman he went to school with – let’s take a model where, in fact, every man hates one woman he went to school with, but likes all other girls from school – one can easily find a function f that maps each man to a woman he actually likes. Hence, it is true that no man hates the woman f assigns to him. The formula can thus be made true, even though it should be false. However, (Kratzer, 1998, 2003) has argued that sentence (4.98a) has a wide scope reading, which becomes more easily available if the determiner a is replaced with some. Kratzer’s variant of the choice function approaches can handle this reading. It can be paraphrased as follows: there is a particular (somehow salient) 42 See also (Chierchia, 2001), where related examples are discussed and where it is shown that the Kratzerstyle choice function approaches cannot account correctly for exceptional wide intermediate scope readings in downward entailing contexts. Cf. the discussion of example (4.108) below.

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function f that maps each man x to a woman f (x) which x went to school with, such that no x hates f (x). This reading can be made salient by letting (4.99) follow (4.98a). (4.99) Namely his first girlfriend from school. Kratzer’s account would represent the functional reading with the following formula. (4.100) ¬∃x[man(x) ∧ hate(x, fx (woman x went to sch with))] (Kratzer, 2003) points to the fact that the free choice function variable f in (4.100) has to be bound by context. It is this property, she argues, that saves the representations from too weak truth conditions, because the function variable f cannot be resolved to just any function, but its value has to be found in the context. This includes the functions that the speaker has in mind. Kratzer argues that all trivializing functions that would weaken the truth conditions of (4.100) in an undesired way are actually not functions that f can be resolved to, because they are too unnatural to be salient in a context where (4.98a) is uttered. Representation (4.100) would therefore give us the correct representation for the reading under discussion. The same would hold for (4.98b) if the involved functions were taken to be natural/nameable and informative ones (cf. the discussion in Section 3.3).

Problems of Kratzer’s (1998) approach We have seen that, apart from the theoretical problem of having to posit two different interpretation mechanisms for indefinites (i.e. the choice function mechanism to interpret a certain subset of the indefinites and a usual QR-mechanism for all others), most of the problems of the choice function approaches enumerated above do not pose problems for Kratzer’s account. Even the Reniers problem in its original form does not challenge her approach.43 Kratzer relies on contextual saliency in order to correctly account for the functional wide scope reading of (4.98a). I have shown in Section 3.3 by means of example (3.56) that saliency does not seem the best way to single out the relevant class of possible functions. A similar point is made by Matthewson (1999). However, as mentioned before, Kratzer assumes that speaker’s knowledge can be included in the ‘context’, i.e. it is sufficient if the speaker knows which function she is talking about and the hearer knows that the speaker wants to refer to this function. Kratzer hereby relies on some notion of speaker’s reference. I have argued extensively against using the speaker’s reference approaches to handle exceptional wide scope, mainly because one can find examples of exceptional wide scope readings where no kind of speaker’s reference seems to be involved (cf. e.g. (4.32)) and where the truth-value of the sentence is not influenced by what the speaker intends to refer to (cf. e.g. (4.34b)). A similar argument can be found in (Matthewson, 1999). The author concludes that choice functions have to be existentially bound from the outermost position and should not be instantiated by context (including speaker’s reference). Matthewson’s approach is the one best equipped to account for the facts we have discussed so far. In her approach, there is no need to rely on a notion of speaker’s reference, because the choice function variables are not left unbound, but are existentially closed from the outermost position. Furthermore, this mechanism would not predict unavailable intermediate scope readings. However, 43 But

see below (e.g. (4.108)) for a new variant of this problem in the Kratzerian approach.


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her account would also have to be augmented with respect to a restriction of the functions that can be quantified over. If all functions were allowed, her account would also wildly overgenerate. As already mentioned, (4.98b) is a suitable representation of the functional wide scope reading of (4.98a), if the restrictions that I argued for in section 3.3 (i.e. nameability and informativity) are imposed on the interpretation domain for the function f . There is one other problem Kratzer’s approach has to face: we have seen at many places throughout this book that there are genuine non-widest scope readings that cannot be represented by a functional construal. Consider example (4.29), slightly amended (to make a functional reading less favored), given below as (4.101). The indefinite ein Student (von ihm) is embedded in an if -clause island. (4.101) Jeder Dozent hat angekündigt, die Party zu verlassen, wenn ↑EIN Student every lecturer has announced,

the party to leave,

if

some student

(von ihm) auftaucht. (of

him) shows-up.

‘Every lecturer announced that he will leave the party if some student (of his) shows up.’ The sentence arguably has a genuine intermediate scope reading – particularly easily available without the functional PP von ihm (of his) –, which is evidenced by the fact that it can be succeeded by a pair-list elaboration as given in (4.102a). It also has a functional interpretation (see the possible continuation in (4.102b)), even when the PP is omitted. This is expected if it is assumed that NPs such as Student (student) can be interpreted functionally by introducing a covert of -predicate. (4.102)

a. A geht, wenn Student A’ erscheint; B, wenn B’ erscheint, ... A goes if

student A’ appears

B if

B’ appears

b. Nämlich der, der ihn während der Vorlesungen am meisten nervt. namely

the who him during

the lectures

most

annoys

‘Namely the one that annoys him most during the lectures.’ This means that in one of its readings, the DP ein Student (von ihm) (a student (of his)) must receive genuine intermediate exceptional wide scope over the if -clause, because this reading (quite naturally) allows for a subsequent pair-list elaboration and does not require the individual-lecturer function to be nameable. It could be argued, however, that the pair-list elaboration in (4.102a) is in fact an elaboration on an implicitly given function such as the student that every lecturer hates most.44 Example (4.101) can be argued to make such a function highly salient, so salient that it need not be uttered in a succeeding statement. The pair-list in (4.102a) would then simply explicate the extension of such an implicitly given function. This is indeed what sometimes happens, though probably not in the case of (4.102). Consider the following example from (Schlenker, 2006, p. 299). (4.103) Every student in my syntax class has one weak point – John doesn’t understand Case Theory, Mary has problems with Binding Theory, etc. Before the final, I say: 44 This

was suggested to me by Hans Kamp.

172

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS a. If each student makes progress in some/a certain area, nobody will flunk the exam. b. ∀x[student(x) → make progress(x, fx (area))] → ¬∃y[flunk (y)]

The sentence has only a functional wide scope reading as indicated in (4.103b). For a genuine intermediate scope reading, the indefinite some area/a certain area would have to take wide scope over the if -clause, but narrow scope with respect to each student, which is an impossible configuration for this example. Yet, as observed by Roger Schwarzschild (p.c. to Philippe Schlenker, cited in Schlenker 2006), (4.103a) can be continued by (4.104). (4.104) John must make progress in Binding Theory, Mary must make progress in Case Theory, ... This shows that pair-list elaborations are possible even if functional readings are involved – however, only if the function under discussion is so salient that it can easily be guessed by the hearer and need not be explicitly mentioned. The hearer will then understand the pair-list elaboration as the extensional version of the function itself. The function the area that every student has most problems with is made highly salient by the context in (4.103) and is thus easy to guess without explicitly mentioning it. Yet, one can find examples where such a reasoning is not possible or at least highly implausible. Example (4.105) allows for an intermediate scope reading, although no function seems to be made salient by the sentence (apart from the uninformative function the photo that is such that every star announced that they would sue ‘Bild’ if it is published, which is the uninformative function that is expressed by the sentence itself). (4.105) Jeder deutsche Star hat schonmal der Bildzeitung every German star has once

gedroht, sie zu

the newspaper ‘Bild’ threatened her to

verklagen, wenn ↑EIN Photo von ihm veröffentlicht werden sollte. sue

if

some photo of

him published

will

should

‘Every German star has threatened to sue the ‘Bild’ if some photo of him is published.’ The sentence can be easily continued by the pair-list enumeration in (4.106). (4.106) Bei Wolfgang Petry war es ein Bild von ihm ohne at

Wolfgang Petry was it a

Stefanie Härtl war es ein Bild Stefanie Härtl was it a

picture of

seine Armbänder, bei

him without his

wristlets,

at

von ihr mit ihrer Tochter, ... Und ich habe

picture of

her with her

daughter ... and I

have

keine Ahnung, warum sie gerade bei diesen Photos mit einer Klage no

idea

why

they just

at these

photos with a

lawsuit

gedroht haben threatened have

‘For Wolfgang Petry it was a picture of him without his wristlets, for Stefanie Härtl it was a picture of her with her daughter, ... And I have no idea why they threatened to sue ‘Bild’ precisely because of these photos.’


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In this case, the pair-list elaboration cannot be understood as describing some kind of implicitly given function. It shows rather that genuine exceptional wide intermediate scope exists. Recall also example (4.49), repeated below as (4.107), which illustrates the existence of genuine exceptional wide intermediate scope readings. (4.107) Genau drei Studenten haben angekündigt, die Party sofort exactly three students

have

announced

zu



if

some lecturer comes

‘Exactly three students have announced that they will leave the party immediately, if some lecturer shows up.’ I have shown that the sentence has both a functional wide scope reading and a genuine intermediate scope reading. It is the genuine intermediate scope reading that poses problems for Kratzer’s approach.45 Chierchia (2001) comes to the same conclusion on different grounds. He discusses exceptional wide intermediate scope readings in downward entailing contexts. Consider the following examples from (Chierchia, 2001): (4.108)

a. Every linguist studied every conceivable solution that some problem might have. b. Not every linguist studied every conceivable solution that some problem might have.

(4.108a) has an intermediate scope reading where some problem takes scope over every conceivable solution, but under every linguist. In the intermediate scope reading, the sentence is true if there exists a specific problem for every linguist such that the linguist studied all conceivable solutions to it. Chierchia calls this the systematic linguist situation. And it is false in a situation where there is at least one linguist for whom no such problem exists such that she studied all solutions for it. This situation is dubbed the unsystematic linguist situation. Crucially, (4.108b) can be used to negate (4.108a). Hence, (4.108b) should be true in the same situations that make (4.108a) false and false in those situations that verify (4.108a). But in the Kratzerian choice function approach, this reading cannot be correctly represented. The following representation for (4.108b) would be derived: (4.109) ¬∀x[linguist(x) → ∀z[solution to(z, fx (problem)) → study(x, z)]] Without restricting the possible values for f , the formula comes out as true in the systematic as well as in the unsystematic linguist situations, which is not what is desired. If the values for f were restricted this would still not give us the intended negated intermediate scope reading, but a widest scope functional reading. It should actually come out as true in the unsystematic linguist situation, but as false in the systematic linguist situation. To see what goes wrong, recall the discussion about the Reniers problem. In the systematic linguist case, there certainly exist functions from linguists to problems 45 But recall that Kratzer allows for non-functional intermediate readings in the context of attitude verbs, as was discussed in 4.7.2. If speech act verbs such as ankündigen (to announce) count as attitude verbs in Kratzer’s view, it seems that she would, in fact, be able to account for the intermediate scope reading of (4.107).

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such that the respective linguist has not studied all solutions to the chosen problem. Choosing such a function as a value for f makes the non-negated part of the formula false. Hence, the negation of it is true. The formula in (4.109) hence fails to represent the negation of the intermediate scope reading of (4.107). Summing up, we have seen that a Kratzer-style choice function approach has difficulties in representing intermediate scope readings in downward entailing contexts. And more generally, I have shown that there are genuine exceptional wide intermediate scope readings which cannot be conceived of as functional readings. I will present my own account for the derivation of these genuine intermediate scope readings of (4.101) and (4.105) in Chapter 6, Section 6.5.

4.7.4

Consequences

The observations made in this last section have far-reaching consequences not only for the validity of the approach of (Kratzer, 1998), but also for all related approaches (i.e. all choice function approaches to wide scope phenomena). We have seen that not all sentences allow for intermediate scope readings equally well. Furthermore we have seen that there are crossover facts for which a choice-function treatment of indefinites in the way proposed by Reinhart (1997) and Winter (1997), where the function variables can be bound from arbitrary positions, could not account. Therefore, it should be assumed that the function variables are either existentially closed from an outermost position, as in the proposal of (Matthewson, 1999), or left free, as in Kratzer’s proposal. However, I have pointed out that this second branch of choice function approaches makes wrong predictions in certain contexts, too, if choice functions can pick out just any function whatsoever. I repeat the relevant example from the last section, its Matthewson-style choice function translation, and the choice function representation in Kratzer’s framework in (4.110). (4.110)

a. No mani hates a woman hei went to school with. b. ∃f [CF (f )∧¬∃x[man(x)∧hate(x, fx (wom x went to sch with))]] c. ¬∃x[man(x) ∧ hate(x, fx (wom x went to sch with))]

For reasons discussed above, the formula in (4.110b) does not represent a reading of (4.110a), if functions are not restricted somehow. I referred to this as the Reniers problem. In Kratzer’s framework, choice functions are left unbound to be resolved by context. The function f in (4.110c) therefore cannot pick up just any function, but its value has to be found in the context. According to Kratzer, (4.110c) therefore gives the correct representation of the sentence in its – what I call the – functional wide scope reading. But I have argued above that the claim that these functions are resolved by context cannot be maintained in its strict sense. The context certainly does not have to make a specific function salient such as x’s first girlfriend from school; and yet, the sentence can be interpreted to mean that it is this very function that f has to be resolved to. This reading can be enforced by a continuing utterance (4.111). (4.111) Namely his first girlfriend from school.


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Only after this utterance is it clear that f has to be resolved to this function, which need not have been salient before (4.111) has been uttered. In (Kratzer, 2003), the author argues that – to license the choice functional use of an indefinite – the speaker has to have a specific method (= a function) in mind, which will pick the correct individual. This speaker’s knowledge then is also regarded as context. In this sense, Kratzer’s view of context covers about the same as the nameability and informativity restrictions introduced above. Whatever the notions context or nameability and informativity may cover in the end, Kratzer is forced to assume some such naturalness restriction for the function in (4.110c). But if this naturalness restriction is imposed on f in (4.110b,c), it has to be a general restriction on possible choice function interpretations. The restriction would then hold for all functional readings. But we have seen that there are genuine intermediate scope readings which cannot be analyzed as instances of functional readings if these functions are taken to be natural or nameable and informative ones. If, on the other hand, the naturalness requirement is given up, the choice function approaches directly run into the Reniers problem.46 In other words, all approaches that solely rely on an interpretation of wide scope phenomena via choice functions – parameterized or not – have to fail eventually because they cannot account for the entire range of readings, as was already pointed out by Schwarz (2001a), or overgenerate badly because they predict intermediate scope readings that do not exist. This fatal consequence might seem surprising at first sight, but it emphasizes the following: non-functional items should not be interpreted via a functional mechanism and wide scope indefinites are not always functional. That is, while Schwarz comes to the conclusion that a comprehensive analysis of exceptional wide scope requires two different mechanisms, a choice function mechanism and a scope-shifting mechanism, in fact, only the scope-shifting mechanism is necessary as long as we allow it to apply to functional items, too. In other words, while Schwarz argues for the existence of two different kinds of long-distance indefinites in English, there is actually only one kind, but – as always – the DPs involved can be functional or non-functional. This view directly contradicts Winter (2004) (and Schlenker (2006) sharing Winter’s conclusions), who argues that exceptional wide scope readings and functional readings share many properties and that this commonness justifies a functional treatment of wide scope phenomena. Actually, all arguments brought up so far which seem to support such a conclusion are actually arguments for the fact that functional wide scope readings of indefinites have a lot in common with other functional readings. However, this is not a specific property of wide scope indefinites, but of functional items. Also, non-wide scope indefinites such as more than three horses can have functional readings, but these are much harder to detect, because these quantifiers do not allow for exceptional wide scope readings in general and hence also disallow functional exceptional wide scope. So what has been taken as evidence for a functional treatment of exceptional wide scope (cf. the arguments put forth in Chierchia, 2001, Winter, 2004, Schlenker, 2006, e.g. (4.79) above) is actually simply evidence for the existence of exceptional wide functional readings.

46 But remember that Kratzer offers a second strategy to derive intermediate scope readings, namely by way of de re interpretations of indefinites (or their embedding eventualities) in the context of attitude verbs.

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I suggest one mechanism M that derives exceptional wide scope readings. The items that are subject to this mechanism can be functional or non-functional. If a functional indefinite is interpreted by M, the resulting wide scope reading will be a functional one. If it is a non-functional indefinite that is to be interpreted, the resulting reading will be an ordinary wide scope reading. In other words, functionality is orthogonal to the matter of exceptional wide scope (cf. also Jäger, 2007) – the interpretation of wide scope indefinites via choice functions cannot be motivated by the existence of functional wide scope readings. Functional items have to be interpreted via mechanisms that can deal with functional items, but these mechanisms are entirely different from the choice function mechanism that can derive exceptional wide scope readings. In the following, I will argue that all quantifiers in English and German support functional readings. It is then a natural consequence that all quantifiers that allow for exceptional wide scope also support exceptional wide functional readings and all others do not. I will begin with a presentation of Winter’s arguments for the claim that only wide scope indefinites support (existential) functional readings, which I will then try to disprove. (Winter, 2004, p. 331) puts it the following way: quantification over functions in natural language is existential only, and is furthermore restricted to a small subclass of noun phrases. Importantly, there are two different matters of functionality involved here, only one of which is relevant to our concerns. Firstly, not all quantifiers embedded in a restrictive relative clause of an NP give rise to functional readings, which is illustrated in (4.113).47 (4.113)

a. The woman that every/no man loves is his mother. b. ∗ The woman that at most one man loves is his mother.

Winter (2004) claims that only so-called bounded quantifiers – every man and no man are bounded, but at most one man is not – give rise to a functional relative clause interpretation in the way indicated in the previous example and he gives a proof of why this might be so (for further discussion and definitions see Winter, 2004).48 The characterization of the class of quantifiers that give rise to functional relative clause readings will not concern us here. The second question which has to be answered – and which is the crucial one for our purposes – is which DPs allow for functional readings in general. Let us assume that a functional relative clause such as that every man loves is combined with the womanset. The question now is which determiners the functional set woman that every man 47 Note

that the functional readings of (4.113a) are not equivalent to ones that would be derived if the quantifier was QRed out of the relative clause. As relative clauses are islands, wide scope out of these islands is not expected anyway, which is furthermore evidenced by the fact that (4.112a) does not have the reading in (4.112b). (4.112)

a. The woman that no man loves came to the party. b. For no man x, the woman that x loves came to the party

It is sometimes argued that a wide scope reading is available if no is replaced with every in (4.112a). Sharvit (1999) assumes that such a reading should be derived in the same way as pair-list readings for questions, as discussed in Section 3.3. This matter shall not concern us here. We will stick to copular sentences and the available functional readings within this construction. 48 There are some (apparent) exceptions to Winter’s generalization such as almost every man, which is not a bounded quantifier and yet gives rise to functional readings and which he also discusses.


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loves can be combined with. (4.113a) illustrates that definite DPs are licensed. Furthermore (specific) indefinites and bare numeral indefinites are licensed as shown in the following example (for this observation see Alexopoulou and Heycock, 2002).49 (4.114)

a. One/a (? certain) woman that every man loves is his mother. b. Two women that every man loves are his mother and his mother-in-law.

Winter (2004) now claims that it is actually only the wide scope quantifiers that give rise to functional readings, which, in his view, is evidenced by the fact that all nonwide scope quantifiers are excluded from the subject position in functional equative sentences such as in (4.114). (4.115)

a.

??

At most one/at least one/no woman that every man loves is his mother. b. ?? Between two and three women that every man loves are his mother, his mother-in-law, and possibly his sister (if he has one).

(Winter, 2004, p. 338) suggests that functional quantification is only existential and it is derived by the same functional process that is responsible for the interpretation of wide scope indefinites [i.e. existential closure of a function variable, CE]. However, as pointed out by an anonymous reviewer of Winter’s article (see footnote 6 in Winter, 2004), quantified DPs like those in (4.115) are generally infelicitous in copular sentences, even also if they are non-functional, as is evidenced by the following example. (4.116)

a. b.

??

At most one/at least one/no woman that every man loves is Arabella. Between two and three women that every man loves are Arabella, Tina, and possibly Maria. ??

Winter thus weakens his claim and argues that at least it is unnecessary to have an account for functional readings of quantifiers such as at least/at most one man or between two and three men because such readings do not exist – for whatever reason that might be the case. However, this restriction weakens his account enormously, because one of the main motivations for it, to show that functional and exceptional wide scope interpretations arise for the same kinds of indefinites, vanishes. If the restriction on quantifiers is due to their occurrence in copula sentences and not due to their functional character, the alleged distributional similarity he claims simply does not exist. I will now show that functional readings actually do exist with all kinds of indefinites and quantifiers.50 It is only exceptional wide scope functional readings that do not exist with non-exceptional wide scope takers – something which is entirely expected 49 Winter (2004) assumes that (4.114a) is grammatical with indefinites such as a woman, a certain woman, and one woman, whereas Alexopoulou and Heycock (2002) give only examples with the determiners a and one. It seems debateable whether a certain is actually permitted in (4.114a). 50 Winter seems to be aware of this fact, as he discusses one example in a footnote, where a non-wide scope indefinite seems to take functional wide scope (see my footnote 53 below). He therefore seems to take the stand that only equative sentences deliver an adequate diagnostic for the question of which determiners allow for functional readings. However, we have seen by way of example (4.116) that these sentences are not suited to investigate which determiners allow for functional interpretations, because equative sentences only allow for a very limited range of DPs in subject position anyway.

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under an approach that treats functional exceptional wide scope as a special case of exceptional wide scope, both kinds of readings being derived via the same mechanism. The following example illustrates functional (wide scope) readings of non-exceptional wide scope takers in German.51 (4.119)

a. Mindestens EIne Frau at-least

mag JEder. – Seine Mutter. Eventuell auch

one woman likes everyone his

mother potentially also

noch andere. else others

‘There is at least one woman that everybody likes. – His mother. Potentially also others.’ b. Nur WEnige Bücher hat JEder Professor in seinem Regal stehen. – only few

books

has every professor in his

bookshelf stand

Seine Magisterarbeit und seine Doktorarbeit, aber mehr his

master-thesis

and his

PhD-thesis

but more

Gemeinsamkeiten gibt es wohl nicht. similarities

give it PART not

‘There are only few books that every professor keeps in his bookshelf. – His master thesis and his PhD thesis, but that’s probably it.’ c. A: Keiner mag seine eigene Schwester. (A: Nobody likes his sister.)

51 As a side remark, let me point out that also functional narrow scope readings are predicted under my assumption that all DPs can be interpreted functionally as well as non-functionally. However, such readings are often equivalent to the non-functional readings (cf. e.g. (3.47), where it is easy to see that (3.47b) is equivalent to (3.47c)). This is not always the case. Consider the following example.

(4.117) Every student brought along exactly three pictures. Let us assume that the sentence is true in its ordinary narrow scope reading for the indefinite exactly three pictures. In this case, the functional narrow scope reading is not necessarily true, however, because there might be many more than three nameable pupil-picture-functions f that are such that every student x brought along f (x), while it might still hold true that every pupil brought along exactly three pictures. E.g. it might be the case that every student brought along three pictures. Max brought a picture of his first birthday, of his 10th birthday, and of his 25th birthday. However, the picture of his 25th birthday is a wedding picture at the same time, because he got married then. The wedding picture-function is clearly not the same as the 25th birthday picture-function, because not all people get married on their 25th birthday. In this case, Max has brought along exactly three pictures, but there exist more than three functions such that he brought along the picture that is picked by these functions. So the functional narrow scope reading is not equivalent to the non-functional narrow scope reading. My account predicts a narrow scope functional reading, i.e. a reading where it is true for every student x that there are exactly three functions f such that x brought along f (x). It is hard to see whether the sentence actually has such a reading. At best, it is not very prominent. However, a case in point might be the following example. (4.118) Peter likes exactly three women. Namely his mother, the woman who cooks for him and the woman who loves him most (and no one else). Let us assume that the three functions mentioned in (4.118) all yield the same result when applied to peter, namely his mother. In this case, the non-functional reading would be clearly false (there is only one woman that Peter likes), but the functional reading might be judged as true. This seems to indicate that a functional reading exists in the case of (4.118), where no scope ambiguity is involved. Whether genuine narrow scope functional readings also exist in cases such as (4.117) is hard to see and I cannot present a convincing example, but in light of example (4.118) I tentatively assume that they do. I thank Ede Zimmermann for discussion of this and providing me with example (4.118).


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B: Doch! Höchstens ZWEI FRAUen kann NIEmand leiden. – Seine yes

at-most

two

women

can

nobody

like

his

Schwiegermutter und vielleicht auch seine Mutter. Aber die mother-in-law

and perhaps

also his

mother but

the

Schwester gehört nicht dazu. sister

belongs not

to-it

‘That is not true! There are at most two women that nobody likes. His mother-in-law and maybe also his mother. But not his sister.’ The sentences in (4.119) give evidence that functional readings do exist with non-wide scope quantifiers such as mindestens eine Frau (at least one woman), wenige Bücher (few books), and höchstens zwei Frauen (at most two women). The reason why these readings are so rare (and have thus gone unnoticed for the most part) is probably the following: 1. Functional DPs in subject position dependent on a DP in object position are excluded, because this would be a configuration showing a free variable at surface structure. LF-movement of the binder over the variable containing DP is prohibited, either because such covert movement is assumed to be illegitimate anyway (as has been proposed for German; cf. the scope principle of Frey (1993)) or (if such movement is assumed to be legitimate) because the object would have to cross the subject at LF in order to bind the variable, which would lead to a weak crossover violation.52 Consider the following example. (4.120) ∗ Ein / ∗ Mindestens ein / ∗ Kein Verwandter (von sichi /ihmi ) mag jedeni some / at least

one / no

relative

of

himself/his likes everyone

– (nicht mal) sein Vater. – not

even his father

Hence, functional DPs will only be observed in object position. But 2. most quantificational DPs in object position – in particular modified numeral quantifiers and monotone decreasing ones – tend to take narrow scope with respect to the subject DP quite generally (cf. e.g. Ben-Shalom, 1993; Beghelli and Stowell, 1997; Szabolcsi, 1997b; Pafel, 2005). (4.121)

a. Jeder Professor hat nur wenige Bücher in seinem Regal every professor has only few

books

in his

stehen.

bookshelf stand

‘There are only few books that every professor keeps in his bookshelf.’ b. Niemand kann höchstens zwei Frauen leiden. nobody

can

at-most

two women like

‘Nobody likes at most two women.’ The object-DPs in (4.121) can only receive narrow scope with respect to the subject DPs. This is independent of intonation and context. Even if e.g. (4.121b) is embedded in the context indicated in (4.119c), höchstens zwei Frauen (at most two women) does not receive wide scope over niemand (nobody), although this reading is clearly triggered by the context. The inability of the quantifiers in object position in (4.119) to take wide scope over the subject DP is a general property of these quantifiers and 52 Note that weak crossover facts are different in German and English (for discussion see Haider, 1993; Frey, 1993). I thank Malte Zimmermann for bringing this to my attention. However, these differences do not bear on the cases at hand.

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not specific to functional ones. The sentences in (4.121) do not support wide scope readings of the object-DP, even if it is interpreted non-functionally. (4.121a) could not be followed by (4.122a); neither could (4.121b) be followed by (4.122b). (4.122)

a. Und das sind erstaunlicherweise ‘Puh der Bär’ and this are surprisingly

und

‘Winnie the Pooh’ and

‘Der kleine Prinz’. ‘The Little Prince’

‘Surprisingly, these are ‘Winnie the Pooh’ and ‘The Little Prince’.’ b. Nämlich höchstens Tina und Martina. namely

at-most

Tina and Martina

‘Namely, at most, Tina and Martina.’ If the object-DPs are moved overtly as in (4.119b,c), the wide scope readings reinforced by the continuations in (4.122) become available as well as the functional (wide scope) readings discussed for (4.119b,c) above, i.e. (4.119b,c) have ordinary wide scope readings as well as functional ones. Let me now turn to example (4.119a) and its in situ variant (4.123). (4.123) Jeder

mag mindestens eine Frau.

everyone likes at-least

one woman

‘Everyone likes at least one woman.’ It seems that not only (4.119a), but also (4.123) has a (functional and non-functional) wide scope reading, because both can be continued by (4.124a,b). (4.124)

a. Nämlich seine Mutter. namely

his

mother

‘Namely his mother.’ b. Nämlich Arabella. namely

Arabella

‘Namely Arabella.’ However, in the case of (4.123), it is not mindestens eine Frau (at least one woman), but actually eine Frau (some woman) that takes wide scope, while mindestens (at least) stays in situ. I have argued for such a reading and this kind of analysis in the context of example (4.11) at the beginning of this chapter. Consider a variant of example (4.123), where mindestens (at least) is replaced by höchstens (at most). (4.125)

a. Jeder

mag höchstens eine Frau.

everyone likes at-most

one woman

‘Everyone likes at most one woman.’ b. Nämlich seine Mutter. namely

his

mother

‘Namely his mother.’ c. Nämlich Arabella. namely

Arabella

‘Namely Arabella.’


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(4.125a) seems to support a functional and a non-functional wide scope reading, too. The functional reading actually shows that it is not the entire DP höchstens eine Frau (at most one woman) that takes wide scope, but only eine Frau (one woman). The functional reading enforced by the continuation in (4.125b) says that everyone likes at most his mother and no other woman, i.e. there is only one woman that each person likes, and this woman is his mother. The reading could be paraphrased as in (4.126a). (4.126)

a. There is one (nameable and informative) function f that maps people to women, and every x is such that x likes at most f (x) b. There is at most one (namelable and informative) function f that maps people to women, and every x is such that x likes f (x)

(4.126a), where at most stays in situ, is true if everyone likes one or no woman. (4.126b), on the other hand, where the entire DP takes wide scope, is true if there is at most one nameable function such that every x loves f (x). Hence, it would be true in case everyone likes his mother and maybe many other women – as long as it is not the case that there is another (nameable) function h, say the sister-function, such that everyone also loves h(x). (4.125a) does not seem to support this reading, but only the one in (4.126a). We can conclude that neither (4.125a) nor (4.123) allow for a ‘real’ wide scope reading of the entire DP. The DP has to be overtly moved to a position that c-commands the subject DP to support a ‘real’ wide scope reading of the entire DP.53 What I have shown is that there are functional readings in English and German that are supported also by non-wide scope quantifiers and that functional wide scope is excluded whenever ordinary wide scope is excluded. In other words, whenever a (nonfunctional) wide scope interpretation is possible, a functional wide scope interpretation seems also available – except when the configuration gives rise to unbound variable/weak crossover configurations (see example (4.120)). Functional readings and exceptional wide scope readings are two independent phenomena. In summary, it seems desirable to allow for functional readings with all different kinds of determiners. Whenever there is a functional set such as woman that every man likes this should be combinable with all sorts of determiners – contrary to what has been argued by Winter. This could easily be implemented in the framework of (Jacobson, 1999) under the assumption that determiners are polymorphic and can apply to functional as well as non-functional sets. Winter, on the other hand, proposes that no determiner should range over functions, but that functional readings are derived via existential closure of a function variable. This closure mechanism is only defined for certain DPs, which, according to Winter, are basically predicative and which he calls flexible DPs. These flexible DPs are the ones that I refer to as wide scope indefinites. 53 An example very similar to example (4.125a) is also discussed in (Winter, 2004, p. 360, endnote 9), which is due to Manfred Krifka (p.c. to Yoad Winter), namely the following.

(4.127) Every child loves at most two women – his mother and, if he has one – his sister. Winter acknowledges the fact that (4.127) obtains a functional reading, although a non-wide scope indefinite is involved. Yet, he does not consider it a counterargument to his theory, but simply a different case than the (wide scope) functional readings he is after, which according to him have to be accounted for by other means.

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4.8 Approaches Relying on Wide Extraction There are three approaches that I am aware of where it is argued that the assumption of a wide extraction mechanism is inevitable. These are: (Schwarz, 2001a; Endriss, 2002; Mart´ı, 2005). Schwarz (2001a) comes to this conclusion because choice function approaches either overgenerate or cannot account for all kinds of long-distance indefinite readings (as shown above). He concludes that a standard scope-shifting mechanism that also allows for exceptional wide scope-shifting is required, but does not discuss what such a mechanism could look like. Mart´ı (2005) argues that exceptional wide QR out of certain islands is possible, which is evidenced by her observations that the Spanish plural indefinite algunos allows for collective and distributive readings outside certain (but not all) islands. She therefore suggests an account involving so-called relativized QR, i.e. QR which is relativized towards the scope island. Her proposal is not intended as a detailed analysis of how relativized QR works, but rather aims to point in the direction future work must go, namely that different kinds of islands have to be investigated carefully. Endriss (2002) proposes a wide dislocation mechanism that evokes a collective interpretation when a QP is dislocated out of an island. All three proposals are mainly motivated by the fact that other approaches cannot account for the full range of data. However, none of them offers a reason why a syntactic dislocation mechanism could possibly allow for wide dislocation in the first place and how such an assumption would fit into the general picture.

4.9 Discussion In Chapter 3, I have shown that specific/referential/extremely domain-restricted readings and wide scope readings are two things that have to be kept apart. This chapter has illustrated that this distinction is also relevant when we consider exceptional wide scope configurations. I have shown that exceptional wide scope cannot be reduced to any pseudoscope mechanism such as speaker’s reference, specificity, or domain restriction. However, we know that only indefinites allow for exceptional wide scope and indefinites play a special role in the analysis of specific/de re readings. As in my proposal the two phenomena arise from entirely different sources, we would not expect any connection between the two phenomena. In particular, we would not expect specific/de re readings to be bound to the same class of quantifiers as exceptional wide scope readings (even when the respective quantifier is embedded in a syntactic island). In the following I will show that this prediction is indeed borne out, which might not be evident at first sight. Let me start by noting that – when investigating the de re/de dicto distinction – the problem is actually not to restrict the class of quantifiers that allow for de re (≈ wide scope) readings, but to restrict the class of quantifiers that allow for de dicto (≈ narrow scope) readings with certain verbs (cf. Zimmermann, 1993). Importantly, de re readings are also available for strong quantifiers, even when embedded in syntactic islands, but (purely extensional) exceptional wide scope readings are not (cf. e.g. Ludlow and Neale, 1991; Reinhart, 1997; Szabolcsi, 1997b; Yeom, 1998). (4.128) Dena believes that almost every friend of Clarissa is intelligent.


183

(4.128) has a de re and a de dicto reading, although the quantifier is embedded in the clausal complement of believes.54 The de re reading is true if Dena knows almost all friends of Clarissa and believes for each of them that she is intelligent. The de dicto reading is true if Dena holds a belief towards the set of almost all of Clarissa’s friends and thinks that being a member of the set means being intelligent. The sentence can be true in the de dicto reading without Dena knowing Clarissa’s friends. The fact that the non-wide scope quantifier almost every friend of Clarissa allows for de re readings even when embedded in syntactic islands shows that this cannot just be an instance of exceptional wide scope. Furthermore, as pointed out by Reinhart (1997) (by way of a very similar example to the one in (4.129)), a de re reading is also possible for (4.129). However, a genuine wide scope reading, where the universal takes wide scope over the indefinite, is not available. (4.129) Someone believes that every friend of Clarissa is intelligent. The sentence is ambiguous between the de re and de dicto readings explicated above. Yet, it does not have a co-variation reading which says that for every friend of Clarissa there is someone who believes that she is intelligent. The example shows that de re readings are available for strong quantifiers, but true (distributive) exceptional wide scope readings are not. Furthermore, de re/specific readings of modified numerals are perfectly possible, although these indefinites do not allow for exceptional wide scope. Examples for specific modified numerals are hard to find, for reasons hinted at above when discussing the approaches of (Schwarzschild, 2002) and (Schlenker, 2005). There must be a reason for the speaker to use the modifier more than, at most, etc. As specific readings often imply speaker’s knowledge about the referent, good examples are not easily found. Here is one: (4.130)

a. At the moment, Peter is traveling through the US. b. In every city he wants to meet more than two professors.

It is quite clear that (4.130b) has a (prominent) specific reading, i.e. it can mean that in every city there are more than two particular professors such that Peter wants to meet them – say in New York there are three particular professors he wants to meet, in Washington there are four and in Chicago there are five. Of course, it is not intended to mean that Peter wants to meet any professors whatsoever in each city as long as he meets more than two. In every city, he wants to meet a particular set of professors. In this case, (4.130b) is probably the easiest way to express this situation. (Beghelli and Stowell, 1997, p. 84), however, claim that modified numeral GQs (their counting quantifiers or CQPs) only support de dicto readings. Example (4.130) constitutes a counterexample to this claim. The modified numeral GQ more than two professors allows for a de re reading quite easily in this context. The claim of Beghelli and Stowell (1997) also contradicts (Zimmermann, 1993, p. 161), who argues that it is the opaque and not the transparent reading that a sentence such as Alain is seeking at most five comic-books lacks. 54 The clausal complement of believes is not a syntactic extraction island and hence not necessarily judged as a scope island. One can substitute believes by holds the belief in (4.128) above and (4.129) below. The clausal complement of the NP belief is undoubtedly a scope island. The substitution does not change the availability of readings. All readings that I claim to be existent for (4.128) and (4.129) are also available if believes is replaced with holds the belief.

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Note also that bare plurals, which usually tend to take narrow scope as shown by Carlson (1977) and thus are certainly not members of the class of exceptional wide scope takers, actually – contrary to what has been claimed by Carlson (1977) – do allow for specific readings, as illustrated by way of the following example (cf. also the famous belladonna example of Kratzer 1980, but van Geenhoven 1998 for counterarguments against this counterargument to Carlson’s claim). (4.131) Peter believes/holds the belief that relatives of mine from Toronto have betrayed him. The most prominent reading of the sentence is one that states that there are certain relatives of mine from Toronto, of whom Peter believes they have betrayed him. Summing up, we have seen that specific/de re readings are available for a much larger class of quantifiers than exceptional wide scope readings (also if the respective quantifier is embedded in a syntactic island). This is further evidence that specificity is a phenomenon quite independent of exceptional wide scope.

4.10

Conclusion

I have recapitulated the observations in the literature that certain kinds of indefinites seem to scope out of what is usually regarded a scope island, i.e. that they seem to take exceptional wide scope (Section 4.2). I have then shown that one can prove that there are exceptional wide scope readings which are genuine scope readings (Section 4.3). These readings cannot be explained away as instances of speaker’s reference, domain restriction or specific readings. Furthermore, we have seen examples of exceptional wide intermediate scope readings, which are also genuine, i.e. that cannot be reduced to functional readings. Hence, we have seen 1. that scope readings are real and 2. that functional readings have to be kept strictly apart from non-functional ones. Functional readings are only evoked by functional expressions; if no functional expression can plausibly be assumed, functional representations should not be used. For the most part, the literature has not attended to this difference. I have presented several classes of approaches towards the explanation of exceptional wide scope phenomena (Sections 4.4–4.7). All approaches suffer from severe problems – the most dramatic problem being that, apart from the presuppositional approaches and Kratzer’s proposal, they all can only account for the functional readings, but not for the genuine scope readings. Certainly this holds true only for the non-Kratzerian choice function approaches which are amended such that they do not allow for existential closure everywhere. However, if not amended in this way, these approaches wildly overgenerate. Most approaches to exceptional wide scope do not differentiate between the different kinds of exceptional wide ‘scope’ phenomena that I have tried to keep apart: specific, referential, extremely domain-restricted, and functional readings on the one hand and genuine wide and intermediate scope readings on the other. For the most part, the approaches are only capable of deriving the specific/referential/extremely domainrestricted/functional readings; the ‘real’ wide and intermediate scope readings are usually neglected (except for the presuppositional approaches, which typically set aside


185

the functional readings, and the approaches of Schwarz 2001a; Mart´ı 2005; Endriss 2002, which assume a syntactic island-insensitive dislocation mechanism, but provide no reason why such a mechanism should exist at all). What I want to do in the remainder is to present a mechanism that can account for the different kinds of exceptional wide (and intermediate) scope readings – functional and non-functional ones. I will also show that only certain quantifiers are interpretable via this mechanism and I will give the reasons why this is so. This accounts for the classification of exceptional wide scope quantifiers and their complement class. None of the approaches presented so far (apart from Endriss, 2002) can explain that only a small subclass of the indefinites allows for exceptional wide scope and they also cannot give a characterization of the properties that exceptional wide scope quantifiers have to meet.

Chapter 5

Semantic Effects of Topicality We have seen so far that certain indefinites can be marked as topical (cf. Chapter 2) and that exactly these indefinites allow for exceptional wide scope (cf. Chapter 4). In this chapter, I will relate these two observations to each other. I will give reasons why topical indefinites usually receive wide scope readings, i.e. genuine wide scope as opposed to apparent wide scope, as was discussed in Chapter 3. Furthermore, I will discuss other semantic effects of topicality. Though indefinites are not considered to be the standard case of a topical entity, we have already encountered several cases where they could serve as sentence topics (cf. among others Reinhart, 1981). When indefinites are interpreted as topics, it is claimed that they receive a strong interpretation, i.e. either a specific/wide scope/referential (or partitive) one (cf. Firbas, 1966; Krifka, 1984; Cresti, 1995; Jäger, 1996; Portner and Yabushita, 2001; Frey, 2001) or a generic interpretation (cf. Kuno, 1972; Kuroda, 1972; Krifka, 1984). Independently, it has also been observed that topical indefinites are interpreted in the restrictor of quantificational adverbs and thus give rise to quantificational variability (QV) readings (cf. among others Chierchia, 1995; Partee, 1991; Krifka, 2001a).

5.1 Types of Aboutness Topics Consider the following examples, that involve German left dislocation. As has been argued in Section 2.2, a left-dislocated constituent is necessarily a topic (if there is no contrastive interpretation to the sentence). (5.1)

a. Ein Pferd von meinem Onkel, das hatte gestern Kolik. a

horse of

my

uncle

RP had yesterday colic

‘Some horse of my uncle had colic yesterday.’ b. Ein Pferd, das hat vier Beine. a

horse RP has four legs

‘A horse has four legs.’ C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 5,

187

188

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS c. Ein Pferd, das hat meistens braune Augen. a

horse RP has usually

brown eyes.

‘A horse usually has brown eyes. The examples show that truly episodic sentences (5.1a), generic sentences (5.1b) as well as sentences involving QV-readings (5.1c) may involve topical indefinites. Let me point out first that I will only present an in-depth analysis of the semantic effect of topicality of cases as illustrated in (5.1a), where the indefinite seems to receive a specific/referential/wide scope interpretation. However, looking at (5.1), a very general question arises: what is the feature that these very different interpretations have in common? In other words: what is it that justifies the indication of topicality for the indefinites in all three cases by way of left dislocation? Or: what overall effect does topicality have?1 I will only give a short answer here and refer the reader to (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2006b) for more discussion of this matter. In (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2006b) we discuss the semantic effect of interpreting topical material in the context of quantificational adverbs (including the generic operator as a covert realization of such adverbs) as well as in the context of determiner quantifiers. The core idea is that topical material resists a predicative environment. This principle thus ensures that topical material does not end up being interpreted in the predicative part of an utterance. We dub the principle that regulates the interpretation of topics the topic occurrence principle. A quantificational structure is seen as a higher order topiccomment structure, where the restrictor corresponds to the topical part and the nucleus to the predicational part, i.e. to the comment. The role of the determiner is to specify the degree to which the predicate applies to the topical object (cf. Löbner, 2000). Consider the following example. (5.2) Most students sleep. We assume that the set of students constitutes the topical part of the utterance. In other words: the sentence is about students and it says about the students that they sleep. Hence the denotation of the VP constitutes the predicational part. Now, the determiner most determines to what extent it holds that the students sleep. In this case it is most of them who sleep. The topic occurrence principle provides an explanation for the wide scope readings of indefinites as well as for their generic and quantificational variability readings. As the arguments of quantificational adverbs are determined by information structure, in the case of quantification over situations or eventualities, the topical indefinite escapes the nuclear scope of the quantificational adverb involved (i.e. the predicational part) by being interpreted in the restrictor of the quantificational adverb. This then results in a QV-reading. In the case of determiner quantifiers, the quantifier’s syntactic complement is necessarily interpreted as its first argument, i.e. the restrictor, because determiner quantifiers choose their arguments syntactically.2 Hence, it is not possible to interpret topical material in the restrictor of the quantifier, if it does not originate 1I

would like to thank Stefan Hinterwimmer for discussions about and joint work on these questions. Parts of this work have been published in: (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2006a,b). Cf. also (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, to appear). 2 For a possible exception to this general tendency see Herburger (2000) and her analysis of many and few. But see (Cohen, 2001) for a different view (cf. Chapter 1, footnote 12).

CHAPTER 5. SEMANTIC EFFECTS OF TOPICALITY

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from there. If a topical indefinite is overtly c-commanded by another determiner quantifier D, it can only escape the scope of this quantifier (i.e. again the predicational part) by taking wide scope over D itself. The underlying intuition behind the topic occurrence principle is that topics define what the sentence is about and thus should not belong to the predicational part. For wide scope indefinites, this aboutness-relation is more direct than for indefinites in sentences with QV-readings, where the indefinite is interpreted in the restrictor of some quantificational adverb. Reconsider example (5.1). Sentence (5.1a) is clearly about one of my uncle’s horses. (5.1b) and (5.1c) are not directly about a horse, but it can be said that they are about situations which are defined solely on the basis of the fact that they contain some horse or other. In this case, the respective horses would be an indirect aboutness topic. The sentences actually are about situations involving horses. However, in all three cases, the indefinite constitutes the aboutness topic of the respective sentences – independent of whether it does this in a direct or a more indirect way. This book will not be concerned with indirect aboutness topics and their interpretative effects. For elaboration on these matters see (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2006b, to appear). Let us now directly turn to direct aboutness topics and take a closer look at (5.1a), repeated below as (5.3a) and (2.20) repeated as (5.4a), which are cases where a topical indefinite constitutes the direct aboutness topic of the utterance made. (5.3)

a. Ein Pferd von meinem Onkel, das hatte gestern Kolik. a

horse of

my

uncle

RP had yesterday colic

‘Some horse of my uncle had colic yesterday.’ b. It has been reported of some horse of my uncle that it had colic yesterday. (5.4)

a. Some horse has eaten all the bananas. b. It has been reported of some horse that it has eaten all the bananas.

The respective indefinites can easily be interpreted as the sentence’s topic, which is exemplified in (5.3b) and (5.4b), respectively. The question that emerges is what it is that makes ein Pferd von meinem Onkel (some horse of my uncle) and some horse felicitous aboutness topics in these cases, although, in the general case, indefinites appear not to be good candidates for topics. I take example (5.5a) and its infelicitous circumscription in (5.5b) to illustrate this. (5.5)

a. Most people were kept awake by a mosquito last night. b. It was reported about a mosquito that it kept most people awake last night.

The reason for the infelicity of (5.5b) as a circumscription of (5.5a), in contrast to the felicity of (5.3b) as a circumscription of (5.3a), is clearly that in the latter case, the indefinite some horse is likely to receive a ‘specific’ – or in Reinhart’s (1981) terms: a referential – interpretation, whereas in (5.5a), it is very unlikely that the speaker is referring to a particular mosquito. (If she does, the sentence’s circumscription

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becomes adequate.) My proposal to make sense of these observations is to postulate that indefinite (direct) aboutness topics have to take wide scope. (5.5b) as a circumscription of (5.5a) is inadequate because the indefinite a mosquito in (5.5a) cannot be understood as topical. In this case, the indefinite would have to take wide scope over the quantifier most people, which is the reading indicated in (5.5b). However, such a reading is very implausible (except under very specific circumstances). In (5.3a), there is no other scope-inducing element, so the claim that the topical indefinite takes wide scope cannot be verified on grounds of this sentence alone. But consider a variant of (5.3a), which only allows for a wide scope reading of the topical indefinite, as predicted. (5.6) Ein Pferd von meinem Onkel, das konnte bisher a

horse of

my

uncle

RP could

noch niemand reiten.

until-now yet

nobody

ride

‘Nobody was able to ride some horse of my uncle until now.’ The sentence only has one reading, namely that there is some particular (supposedly very wild) horse of my uncle that no one was able to ride. It does not have a simple narrow scope reading meaning that nobody is able to ride a horse of my uncle.3 That it is indeed topicality which evokes this wide scope effect can be evidenced by consideration of the following minimal alteration of the original example. This sentence is ambiguous, i.e. it also allows for the narrow scope reading of the indefinite, which says that nobody has so far been able to ride any horse of my uncle. (5.7) Ein Pferd von meinem Onkel konnte bisher a

horse of

my

uncle could


until-now yet

nobody

ride

‘Nobody was able to ride a horse of my uncle until now.’ In (5.7), the indefinite has simply been fronted, but not left-dislocated as in (5.6). We observe that (5.7) supports a narrow scope reading for the fronted indefinite, which sets it apart from (5.6). The fact that (5.6) only has a wide scope reading and lacks a narrow scope one cannot be explained as simply due to the word order. In other words, although the indefinite under discussion precedes the universal quantifier, this cannot be the reason for the lack of a narrow scope reading in (5.6), because (5.7) has the same word order and yet a narrow scope reading is available. Eventually, I make the following claim: Claim 5.1 (Topic Interpretation) If an indefinite is topical, it necessarily receives a strong interpretation. This strong interpretation is a result of its interpretation as topic. In the case of direct aboutness topicality the strong interpretation comes down to a wide scope interpretation. I will substantiate this claim in the following sections and I will lay out my approach formally in Chapter 6. In particular, I will show that wide scope (as opposed to specificity or referentiality) is the relevant notion here. Let me note at this point that we can 3 There might be some other readings intervening, when the left dislocation construction is not understood as topic-marking, but rather as contrastivity-marking. These readings have to be ignored for the moment. It is important that there is only one non-contrastive reading to the sentence (which can – and for some speakers can only – be elicited when the indefinite is realized emphatically, i.e. with a heavy accent on the determiner ein ).


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predict that topical indefinites also bear exceptional wide scope in the sense discussed in Chapter 4, if the respective indefinite can be argued to be topical. As the wide scope interpretation results from its topical status, which is an information-structural and not a syntactic notion, we can expect that the scope behavior is not affected by syntactic configurations. If we argue the opposite, it follows that indefinites interpreted with exceptional wide scope should be topical, because no mechanism that has to obey syntactic restrictions – as e.g. Quantifier Raising or a reconstruction mechanism – can be responsible for this wide scope interpretation. Note that in the case of local scope we cannot draw such a conclusion, as local scope inversion can come about by a covert syntactic mechanism, which operates on the logical form. In any case, we have to make sure that the readings we examine involve genuine wide scope and not just a specific interpretation or any other apparent wide scope interpretation of the indefinite. The following table sums up these considerations for direct aboutness topics. (5.8)

topical indefinite exceptional wide scope local wide scope

=⇒ =⇒ 6=⇒

wide scope (exceptional or local) topical indefinite topical indefinite

5.2 Intonation We have seen in Chapters 3 and 4 that wide scope indefinites are usually realized emphatically in German and also in English. In the following, I will correlate this finding with what we have seen in Chapter 2, Section 2.2.3, namely that the emphatic stress pattern in German (a strong – usually rising – accent on the determiner) is a topicmarking device. The obvious generalization is that emphatic indefinites receive a wide scope interpretation because they are topical. The emphatic stress pattern indicates direct aboutness topicality. This is in line with all approaches that treat the rising tone to be a topic-marking device for new topics (e.g. Gundel, 1985, 1988; Hedberg, 1990; Molnár, 1993; McNally, 1998).4 As direct aboutness topics take wide scope (as was pointed out in the preceding section), emphatic indefinites, which are marked as topics, receive wide scope. This means that in the case of (5.6), instead of choosing left dislocation as a topic-marking device, the speaker could also have chosen the emphatic stress pattern to achieve her goal, as illustrated in the following example in German.5 (5.9) Bisher

konnte noch niemand ↑EIN Pferd von meinem Onkel reiten.

until-now could

yet

nobody

some horse of

my

uncle ride

‘Until now, nobody was able to ride some (particular) horse of my uncle.’ 4 See also (Kuno, 1972, p. 301), who argues (and attributes this observation to Perlmutter) that sentences with an indefinite subject and a stative verb are only grammatical if the determiner of the indefinite subject receives a heavy accent. According to Kuno, indefinites can be the topic/theme of their sentences only in this particular case. 5 The example might look somewhat odd on the face of it. This is probably due to the fact that emphatic indefinites prefer positive environments rather than negative ones (cf. the discussion of some -DPs as Positive Polarity Items in (Szabolcsi, 2004)). Further support for this suspicion comes from the fact that (5.9) becomes better if the indefinite is moved to the left of the negative quantifier niemand (nobody). However, (5.9) is fully acceptable if it is uttered with a strong accent on niemand (nobody) (in addition to the one on the determiner of the indefinite) and a pause afterwards, i.e. before the indefinite.

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The object DP ein Pferd von meinem Onkel (some horse of my uncle) is realized emphatically, which means that it has to be interpreted as a direct aboutness topic, and hence the sentence has only the wide scope reading. This wide scope interpretation effect is only achieved indirectly via a topical interpretation of the indefinite. Hence, topical objects in particular are very likely to be realized emphatically (and thus topicmarked in this way), if no other topic-marking construction such as left dislocation is chosen, because objects – unlike subjects – are not likely to be interpreted as topical by default. This seems to be the source of the observation from Chapter 3 that emphatic indefinites usually take wide scope. If the emphatic stress pattern marks topicality and topicality evokes wide scope, the observation follows straightforwardly. In other words, the wide scope readings of the indefinites with an accent on the determiner in the examples discussed in Chapter 3 were due to their topical status. Let us assume that it is my proposed mechanism M that interprets indefinites of this kind. (Milsark, 1977, p. 22, footnote 11) remarked that SOME -indefinites (i.e. indefinites in English with stressed some), as opposed to sm-indefinites (with unstressed some, see footnote 9 from Chapter 3) can be taken to be topical entities about which a predication can be made. This, he speculates, might be the reason for their infelicity in there-sentences, which are known to be topicless.6 Note that the left-dislocated indefinite in (5.6) can be – and preferably is – realized emphatically, which is unexpected considering that it is already topic-marked via left dislocation, because this imports some kind of redundancy. Left dislocation marks the indefinite as topical and the emphatic intonation pattern additionally marks it as a direct aboutness topic. One of the two markings is superfluous. (5.10) ↑EIN Pferd von meinem Onkel, das konnte bisher some horse of

my

uncle

RP could


until-now yet

nobody

ride

‘Some horse of my uncle, nobody was able to ride until now.’ Possibly, the specific intonation pattern for direct indefinite aboutness topics (an accent on the determiner) has been grammaticalized over time such that direct aboutness topics are, in general, now realized emphatically, even in cases where this marking is (strictly speaking) superfluous.7 We will soon see examples of sentences where it does make a difference whether an indefinite is realized emphatically or in its slim variant (examples (5.12) and (5.13)). Here, the sentences would be ambiguous between a 6 Milsark, however, takes the view that SOME -DPs embody strong quantifiers and that topical DPs must be strong (≈ quantificational), which is a not very widespread assumption. And this view would make it even more urgent to address the question (which is not addressed in Milsark, 1977) why most (strong) quantifiers are excluded from a topical interpretation. 7 However, if it was a mere grammaticalization process, this would make the false prediction that all direct aboutness topics have to be realized emphatically. But it seems that the indefinite in (5.6) can be realized in the slim variant, although the emphatic one might be preferred. Consider also the following examples, the first of which we have already encountered as example (1.18b) above.

(5.11)

¨ a. Ein kleines MAdchen, das wollte einst nach Frankreich reisen. a little girl RP wanted once to France travel ‘Oncle, a little girl wanted to travel to France.’ ¨ b. Drei MAdchen, die wollten einst nach Frankreich reisen. three girls RP wanted once to France travel ‘Three girls wanted to travel to France once.’


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reading where the topical indefinite is read as an indirect and a direct aboutness topic, if not disambiguated via the emphatic/slim distinction. The emphatic stress pattern disambiguates them towards the direct aboutness topic reading. One might speculate that, due to the incremental character of speech, a speaker chooses to realize a topical indefinite emphatically even in cases where there is no ambiguity involved, to indicate at the moment she utters the indefinite that the indefinite is going to be a direct aboutness topic, even if this will turn out to be the only option in the sentence at hand. Setting aside the problem of double topic marking, the assumption that the emphatic stress pattern marks direct aboutness topicality accounts directly for the fact that indefinites which allow for generic and quantificational variability readings have to be realized in their slim versions, i.e. with an accent on the NP-complement in German and with the determiner a instead of some in English. This can be verified in examples (5.12) and (5.13). Reconsider examples (5.1b,c) (repeated below) and their English translations. What these examples show is that only slim indefinites can evoke generic or quantificational variability readings, whereas emphatic ones cannot yield such a reading.8 (5.12)

a. Ein PFERD, das hat meistens braune Augen. A

b.

horse

RP has usually

brown eyes

‘A horse usually has brown eyes.’ ↑EIN Pferd, das hat meistens braune Augen.

#

some horse RP has usually

brown eyes

‘Some horse usually has brown eyes.’ c. A horse usually has brown eyes. d. # Some horse usually has brown eyes. As mentioned before, QV-readings (and generic readings, being an instance of this type that contain a covert generic operator) can only come about by way of quantification over situations or eventualities. The quantificational variability reading for (5.12a) and (5.12c) can be roughly paraphrased as: most contextually relevant minimal situations that include a horse (and comprise its full lifetime) are such that the horse has brown eyes. There is no such reading for (5.12b) and (5.12d). The only reading (5.12b,d) could possibly have would be one where the topical indefinite takes wide scope over the quantificational adverb and the individual level predicate have brown eyes is reinterpreted as a stage level predicate. The sentences would then be true in a situation where some specific horse has the peculiar ability to change its eye color and c. Einen ehemaligen NACHbarn von mir, den hat auf der Party letzte Woche keiner a former neighbour of mine RP has on the party last week none meiner Freunde gegrüßt. of-my friends greeted ‘None of my friends said hello to some former neighbour of mine at the party last week.’ In all three sentences, the left-dislocated DP can be realized non-emphatically, although the left-dislocated indefinites are clearly direct aboutness topics. So there is a strong tendency to realize direct aboutness topics emphatically as exemplified in (5.10), but this does not appear to be necessary. 8 See (Pafel, 2005, p. 197) for a similar observation for German and e.g. (Farkas, 2002) and references therein for English. Again, I use German left dislocation to mark the left-dislocated DP as topical. In English, I take it that the sentence-initial subject is interpreted as topic by default. The same holds for German, too, but I stick to left dislocation as a topic-marking device in German.

194


where this horse has brown eyes in most (contextually salient) situations (cf. Kratzer 1995 for this marginal possibility of reinterpreting individual level predicates as stage level predicates). As horses are known to be individuals unable to constantly change their eye-color, this reading is ruled out as implausible. Obviously, these interpretative effects directly follow from the assumption that emphatic indefinites have to be interpreted as direct aboutness topics and thus receive wide scope. It is thus predicted that in (5.12b,d), the topical indefinites have to take wide scope over the quantificational adverb. It also directly follows that generic sentences involve slim indefinites. (5.13)

a. Ein PFERD, das hat vier Beine. a

horse

RP has four legs

‘A horse has four legs.’ b. # ↑EIN Pferd, das hat vier Beine. some horse has four legs

‘Some horse has four legs.’ c. A horse has four legs. d. # Some horse has four legs. (5.13a) and (5.13c) receive a generic interpretation, whereas ↑EIN Pferd (some horse) in (5.13b) and some horse in (5.13d) can only be interpreted as direct aboutness topics.9 The indefinite involved receives wide scope over the assumed tacit generic operator resulting in the following interpretation: for some horse (of a contextually salient set of horses) it holds that in all imaginable situations it has four legs. The speaker thus singles out a horse from an already established set of horses and says about it that it has four legs. But this is known to be a general property of horses and hence the sentences sound odd. Accordingly, QV-readings are only possible with slim indefinites. (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2006b) provide a different reasoning to explain why wide scope indefinites, on the one hand, and generic interpretation and indefinites subject to QV, on the other, show different intonation patterns and what could be the reason for the complementary distribution of some and a.10 In essence, it is argued that accenting the restrictor set (and using a instead of some) is the unmarked way of presenting an 9 See (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, 2006b, to appear) for systematic exceptions to this general scheme. Note furthermore that the other direction does not necessarily hold (as was pointed out above already). There are slim indefinites that are interpreted as non-generics in sentences where the generic interpretation would in theory be available (see also example (5.6)).

(5.14) Ein Freund von meinem VAter, der ist wahnsinnig intelligent. a friend of my father RP is extremely intelligent ‘A friend of my father’s is extremely intelligent.’ A non-generic reading is easily available for the indefinite ein Freund von meinem Vater (a friend of my father’s), but not for (5.13a) probably because the NP-complement of the indefinite in (5.14) is much heavier and the indefinite is hence likely to be interpreted specifically. In this case, the indefinite can only be understood as the direct aboutness topic of the sentence and a generic reading is prohibited. There is hence no need to realize the indefinite emphatically to mark it as the direct aboutness topic. 10 But note that the approach of Endriss and Hinterwimmer (2006b) can only account for the data in (5.12) and (5.13), but not for the general tendency of direct aboutness topics to be realized emphatically (cf. (5.10)) if no ambiguity between a wide scope and a generic/QV-reading is involved.


195

indefinite, whereas a heavy accent on the determiner (and using some) can be regarded as marked. According to Horn’s division of pragmatic labour, unmarked structure goes along with unmarked or simple interpretations and marked structure goes along with marked or more complicated interpretations. Because situations need to be restricted somehow, the preferred way to do this restriction is via overt material. Hence, whenever quantification over situations is involved (as is always the case for generic sentences and sentences that contain quantificational adverbs) the preferred option is to map topical material onto the restrictor of the quantificational adverb and thus to restrict the situations by this overt material. The marked option would be to let the topical indefinite take wide scope over the quantificational adverb and accommodate the material to restrict the situations quantified over. This would then have to be indicated by a marked form, namely a heavy accent on the determiner. (5.12b,d) are deviant because the speaker uses the marked form without reason. He could have used the unmarked form to represent the unmarked interpretation (i.e. the quantificational variability interpretation), which would have been more economical. The hearer concludes that the speaker does not want to express the unmarked interpretation and hence tries to interpret the topical indefinite as taking wide scope over the quantificational adverb, which results in a reinterpretation of the individual level predicate to have brown eyes as stage level. However, such a reading contradicts world knowledge and this is why the sentences sound odd. A more recent development of an account for why wide scope readings tend to be realized by accenting the determiner, while generic as well as QV-readings tend to be realized by accenting the NP-complement can be found in (Endriss and Hinterwimmer, to appear). The accent on the determiner and the NP-complement, respectively, is interpreted as a focal accent inside a topical constituent (cf. von Fintel, 1994; Krifka, 1998; Tomioka, to appear). In the case of a wide scope interpretation, accenting the indefinite determiner ein (some) of ↑EIN Pferd (some horse), which is form identical to the cardinality predicate one, invokes alternatives such as zwei Pferde (two horses), drei Pferde (three horses) etc. The entire sentence then expresses that there is one horse that has a certain property that is expressed by the sentence predicate. As the speaker is only sure about this one horse having this property (and not two or three), the accent is licensed. In the case of QV-readings in the presence of adverbial quantifiers, contrasting one with two or three individuals of the NP-class makes no sense, because these individuals simply serve to define the (minimal) situations that are quantified over (see Endriss and Hinterwimmer to appear for details). Let me finally remind the reader that marking direct aboutness topicality is not the only function of the emphatic stress pattern. In fact, the emphatic stress pattern can indicate direct aboutness topicality as well as contrastivity, as was already discussed in Section 2.2.3 of Chapter 2. Generally speaking, a sentence that contains an emphatic indefinite should be ambiguous between a topical (= wide scope) and a contrastive interpretation. However, I have claimed above that (5.9) receives only a wide scope interpretation. So why is a contrastive interpretation not available here? For this example the answer is very simple: a contrastive interpretation, where one is contrasted with two or three, is highly implausible here, which is probably why a contrastive narrow scope reading is unavailable. Consider the following minimal variant of (5.9) in (5.15a), which has

196


a wide scope reading and a narrow scope contrastive one, which is reinforced when (5.15b) follows it. (5.15)

a. Bisher

durfte

noch niemand ↑ZWEI Pferde von meinem

until-now was-allowed yet

nobody

two

horses of

my

Onkel reiten. uncle ride

‘Until now, nobody was allowed to ride two horses of my uncle.’ b. EINS aber schon. one

but indeed

‘But one was ok.’ In addition to a wide scope reading for zwei Pferde (two horses), (5.15a) allows for the narrow scope reading that nobody so far was allowed to ride two of my uncle’s horses. But this reading is necessarily contrastive. Under this reading, the accented determiner needs to be read in contrast to some other determiner, i.e. the sentence needs to be followed by a sentence such as (5.15b). In this case, the emphatic stress pattern seems to mark contrastivity and not topicality. That these two seemingly very different functions – marking contrastivity and marking topicality – are encoded by one and the same means is known from other constructions, too, and was already pointed out in Section 2.2. We have seen thus far that there can be direct and indirect aboutness topics for sentences and this is the reason why one encounters very different kinds of topical DPs, i.e. generically interpreted ones, ones that receive a quantificational variability reading and ‘specifically’ interpreted/wide scope ones. However, somewhat surprisingly, specific/wide scope indefinites on the one hand (examples (5.1a)) and indefinites with QV-readings and generic indefinites on the other (examples (5.1b,c)) often have rather different appearances. They usually involve different intonation patterns in German and different determiners in English. The peculiar stress pattern of emphatic indefinites in German (a strong accent on the determiner) is a topic marker for direct aboutness topicality and usually, topical wide scope indefinites are marked this way (even in cases where the indefinite is also marked for topicality by other means). The specific intonation pattern is thus interpreted as a way of topic-marking – similar to left dislocation and other familiar ways of topic marking. But while e.g. left dislocation simply marks the left-dislocated DP as topical, regardless of the type of topicality, the specific intonation pattern of an emphatic indefinite marks the respective DP as the direct aboutness topic. To sum up, the emphatic stress pattern is a way of marking direct aboutness topicality. Interpreting these direct aboutness topics leads to a wide scope interpretation of the topic-marked indefinite. Although indefinites used as direct aboutness topics are usually realized emphatically, this does not mean that they have to be. Hence, slim indefinites can also be topical and even receive exceptional wide scope. Finding out the exact constraints on when a topical indefinite has to be realized emphatically and when exactly it can be realized in its slim version has to be left as a task for further research.


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5.3 Topicality Induces Wide Scope 5.3.1

Genuine Wide Scope vs. Apparent Wide Scope

In this section, I will show that topicality actually evokes wide scope and not e.g. a specific interpretation of the topical indefinite in the sense explained in Chapter 3. I will use German examples for demonstration. Consider the different interpretations of (5.16a) with the indefinite eine bestimmte Schwedin (a certain Swede), which is not necessarily the sentence’s topic, and (5.16b) with the left-dislocated and therefore topical indefinite eine Schwedin (some Swede). Note that the determiner of the indefinite eine Schwedin (some Swede) is accented in (5.16b) because it constitutes the direct aboutness topic of the sentence. (5.16)

a. Jeder

auf der Party wollte eine bestimmte Schwedin heiraten.

everybody on the party wanted a

certain

Swede

marry

‘Everybody at the party wanted to marry a certain Swede.’ auf der Party heiraten. b. ↑EIne Schwedin, die wollte jeder some

Swede

RP wanted everybody on the party marry

‘Everybody at the party wanted to marry some Swede.’ The most salient reading of (5.16a) is one where the indefinite is interpreted specifically, but with narrow scope with respect to jeder (everybody). The sentence then means that for everyone at the party there exists a specific Swede that he wanted to marry. There is a second (also specific) reading which gives wide scope to the Swede saying that everyone wanted to marry this particular Swede. As discussed in the previous chapters, bestimmt serves as a specificity marker in German and thus evokes a specific reading of the respective indefinite – in this case with respect to the verb wollte (wanted).11 If the indefinite takes scope over the opaque verb, it does not inevitably also take scope over the universal quantifier. As opposed to what Hintikka (1986) assumes we have said that in the general case, if a specific indefinite takes scope outside of an opaque operator O, it must also take scope over all operators that are c-commended by O – but certainly not over any operators that c-command it. A specific indefinite then takes wide scope over the corresponding opaque operator, but not over any c-commanding operators. Here, this means that the specific interpretation of eine bestimmte Schwedin (a certain Swede) accounts for the most salient co-variation reading of (5.16a). The reading in which the indefinite also takes widest scope also over jeder (everybody) is not a reading that emerges just by interpreting the indefinite as specific. 11 Recall that I do not consider gewiss to be a specificity marker in German, although it is usually treated on par with bestimmt in the literature. Consider e.g. (5.16a). If eine bestimmte is replaced by eine gewisse, the sentence receives only a widest scope reading for the indefinite. There are other examples where the indefinite marked by gewiss can vary with some c-commanding quantifier, as e.g. in

(5.17) Jeder meiner Freunde hat eine gewisse Zeit im Ausland verbracht. every of-my friends has a certain time in abroad spent ‘All of my friends spent some time abroad.’ I am not clear about the correct generalization about where gewiss can be used, but I am convinced that it behaves differently from bestimmt.

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The widest scope reading of (5.16a) can come about in two ways. Either a tacit epistemic operator such as Ich weiß (I know) is inserted and the indefinite takes wide scope over this operator, as Hintikka proposes. Or the indefinite is interpreted as topic, and topicality induces wide scope. Nothing excludes bestimmt-indefinites from being interpreted as sentence topics. Note that there is another reading, namely a widest scope functional reading, where everybody wants to marry the same type of Swede, say the first Swedish woman he met in his life. This functional wide scope reading is different from the specific one that was just discussed. The functional reading requires the function to be nameable and informative (as explicated in Section 3.3). Sentence (5.16a) then has three different readings: 1. The specificity-induced reading, which pairs every person with a specific Swede he wants to marry. This pairing does not have to be natural in any way, i.e. it is not required that there is a name for the function that maps the party-people to Swedes. 2. The wide scope non-functional reading, which is a non-variation reading induced by a topical interpretation of the indefinite or by wide scope over a tacit epistemic operator. 3. The functional wide scope reading, which is also induced by a topic interpretation or wide scope over a tacit operator. Here, every person at the party is paired with a Swede. But this time, this pairing must correspond to a nameable function such as the first Swedish woman every person met in his life. It is easy to see that (5.16a) has a reading that (5.16b) does not have, namely the narrow scope specific reading (1). (5.16b) most saliently has reading (2), where eine Schwedin (some Swede) is interpreted specifically and takes wide scope over jeder (everyone), i.e. there is one specific Swede that everyone wants to marry. In certain contexts, it can also have the functional reading (3), evidenced by the fact that (5.16b) can be continued by nämlich die erste Schwedin, die jeder in seinem Leben getroffen hat (namely the Swede that everybody met first in his life). These two readings are wide scope readings and are due to the topical status of the indefinite. (5.16b) lacks reading (1), because the indefinite is topical and therefore necessarily takes wide scope. In any case, there is a clear difference between the available interpretations of (5.16a) and (5.16b). While the specific indefinite eine bestimmte Schwedin (a certain Swede) does not necessarily take wide scope over the universal quantifier, the topical indefinite ↑EIne Schwedin (some Swede) does. This is because (5.16a) does not necessarily involve a topical indefinite as opposed to (5.16b). This does not exclude the possibility that bestimmt-indefinites can be interpreted as sentence topics and thereby receive a wide scope interpretation. The following example also illustrates the difference between bestimmt-indefinites and topical ones in German. (5.18) Sitzpläne mit den Gästen vorher zu besprechen hat gar keinen Sinn. (Discussing a seating plan with the guests beforehand is pointless.)

CHAPTER 5. SEMANTIC EFFECTS OF TOPICALITY a. Denn jeder

199

will (immer) unbedingt eine bestimmte Person als

because everybody wants (always) necessarily a

certain

person as

Tischnachbarn haben. table-neighbour have

‘Because everybody (always) wants to have a certain person sitting next to him at the table.’ (immer) unbedingt als b. Denn ↑EIne Person, die will jeder because some person RP wants everybody (always) necessarily as


‘Because everybody (always) wants to have one particular person sitting next to him at the table.’ c. Nämlich den Gastgeber. (Namely the host.) d. Nämlich seinen Lebenspartner. (Namely his/her partner.) (5.18a) has a very salient reading that for every person p1 there exists (at least) one specific person p2 such that p1 wants p2 next to him. As one can never take care of all these different wishes, it does not make sense to discuss the seating plan with the guests beforehand. In this reading, it suffices that eine bestimmte Person (a certain person) is specific in the sense defined in Section 3.1, i.e. for each p1 there has to exist a certain person p2 such that p1 wants this person to sit next to him. No more is required to make (5.18a) true. In particular, there is no pragmatic specificity involved, i.e. neither the speaker nor anybody else needs to know which person everyone wants to have sitting next to him – not in an extensional way and not in an intensional way (i.e. by knowing the function that maps persons to their favorite table-partners). It simply suffices that the speaker knows that every person has some specific favorite table-partner and is not indifferent as to where this person is seated. There are other less salient readings of (5.18a), namely a functional and a nonfunctional one where the indefinite is interpreted with wide scope over the universal quantifier similar to (5.16). Again, these readings can evolve from the possible topical status of the involved indefinite. The two readings are reinforced by the continuations in (5.18c) and (5.18d). The former represents an absolute wide scope reading – there is one specific person per party that everybody wishes to sit next to (this person may only vary with respect to different parties) – and the latter represents a functional wide scope reading. Crucially, (5.18b), containing an indefinite that is necessarily interpreted as topic due to its appearance in left-dislocated position, lacks the most prominent reading of (5.18a). As predicted, it only supports the wide scope readings reinforced by (5.18c,d). Let me now turn to partial topics (partitive specifics in the terminology of Enç (1991)). They behave just like usual indefinite topics, i.e. they take wide scope with respect to other quantifiers (cf. Pafel, 2005, pp. 79–81 for the general wide scope tendency of partitive (or in Pafel’s terms: discourse-bound) DPs, but van Geenhoven (1998) for examples of narrow scope partitives). This contradicts Enç’s claim that the

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scope behavior of these indefinites is independent of their specific interpretation, as was discussed in Chapter 3. Let me repeat Enç’s example (3.15) discussed in Section 3.1 here. (5.19)

a. Odam

-a

birkaç çocuk girdi.

my-room -DAT several child entered

‘Several children entered my room.’ tanıyordum. b. Iki kız -ı two girl -ACC I-knew

‘I knew two (of the) girls.’ c. Iki kız tanıyordum. two girl I-knew

‘I knew two girls.’ In (5.19b), the quantifier iki kız-ı (two girls) is marked with the accusative. The quantifier then denotes a group of two girls that is a subgroup of the children introduced in (5.19a). Sentence (5.19c) following (5.19a), on the other hand, cannot be understood as referring to a subgroup of the children just mentioned. Hence, (5.19a) in combination with (5.19c) sounds rather incoherent. Enç concludes that accusative marking makes a DP ‘specific’, where specificity means that the DP has to relate back to some discourse-known entity. But consider now the following example, which is a variant of Enç’s example.12 (5.20)

a. Dün

birkaç arkadas¸ -lar -ımla

yesterday several friend

odam

-daydık. Odam

-PL -with-my my-room -were

-a

my-room -DAT

birkaç çocuk girdi. several child entered

‘Yesterday, I was in my room with a few friends. Several children entered my room.’ tanıyorduk. b. Ço˘gmuz iki kız -ı most-of-us two girl -ACC we-knew

‘Most of us knew two (of the) girls.’ c. Ço˘gmuz iki kız tanıyorduk. most-of-us two girl we-knew

‘Most of us knew two (of the) girls.’ (5.20b), where the indefinite bears the accusative case, and (5.20c), which lacks the accusative marking, can both be understood as referring to two girls constituting a subset of the children introduced in (5.20a). This is different from Enç’s original example, where only accusative-marked DPs could refer back to an already established set. But more importantly, the indefinite iki kız-ı (two (of the) girls) in (5.20b) has to be understood as taking wide scope over the quantifier ço˘gmuz (most of us), whereas (5.20c) is ambiguous concerning the scope of the indefinite. These facts cannot be explained within Enç’s account. Quite to the contrary, Enç claims that (partitive) specifics do not necessarily take wide scope, not even with respect to opaque/epistemic operators. 12 Thanks to Suna Bensch-Aydin for helping me with the Turkish data, for her judgments and her help in finding other native speakers.


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Even if there was the constraint that accusative-marked DPs have to refer back to some known set/entity, this would not tell us anything about the scope relations of the involved quantifiers (cf. van Geenhoven, 1998, Section 6.4). The set consisting of two girls in (5.20b) could refer back to the group of children that entered the room and still vary with the value for ço˘gmuz (most of us). However, the lack of a narrow scope reading for (5.20b) shows that Enç’s partitive specifics are, in fact, partial topics and therefore behave like partitives and like topics. They refer back to a set that has already been introduced and they take wide scope at the same time. Similar facts can be elicited in German. (5.21)

a. Einige Kinder betraten mein Zimmer. several children entered my

room

‘Several children entered my room.’ b. ↑ZWEI (der) Mädchen kannte ich. two

of-the girls

knew

I

‘I knew two (of the) girls.’ ¨ . c. Ich kannte zwei MAdchen I

knew

two girls

‘I knew two girls.’ In German, partitive DPs can be overtly marked as partitive. In this case, they are represented as a determiner with a definite (or, more generally speaking, a strong) DP in genitive case (zwei der Mädchen). Or they can simply be understood as partitive without the overt partitive marking. In either case, a strong accent is realized on the determiner as indicated in (5.21b). The partitive variant in (5.21b) can only mean that the two girls constitute a subgroup of the children introduced in (5.21a). (5.21c) on the other hand is more likely to be interpreted as introducing a new group of people, although a second interpretation, where the set of girls can be interpreted as relating back to the introduced group of children, seems possible (cf. Jäger, 1996, Section 4.1). Now consider the following example. (5.22)

a. Ich saß mit Freunden in meinem Büro. Dann betraten einige Kinder I

sat with friends

in my

office then entered several children

mein Zimmer. my

room

‘I was sitting in my office with some friends. Then several children entered my room.’ b. ↑ZWEI (der) Mädchen kannten die meisten von uns. two

of-the girls

knew

most

of

us

‘Most of us knew two girls.’ c. ? Die meisten von uns kannten ↑ZWEI (der) Mädchen. the most

of

us knew

two

of-the girls

‘Most of us knew two girls.’ ¨ d. Die meisten von uns kannten zwei MAdchen . the most

of

us knew

‘Most of us knew two girls.’

two girls

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In (5.22d), the main accent falls on the NP-complement of the indefinite, which is the ‘neutral’ intonation for the sentence. In this case, the indefinite can be interpreted as taking wide or narrow scope. In the case of (5.22b,c), the sentences only have a wide scope reading for the indefinite. One could argue that the wide scope interpretation is triggered by the syntactic topicalization operation in (5.22b), which makes the indefinite c-command the other quantifier die meisten von uns (most of us) at surface structure. However, (5.22c), where the indefinite stays in situ (and which therefore sounds less natural), also only allows for a wide scope interpretation. I conclude that partial indefinite topics behave like typical indefinite topics: they take wide scope.

5.3.2

Apparent Non-Wide Scope Interpretations of Direct Aboutness Topics

There are cases of topical indefinites which seem problematic for the claim that topical indefinites always involve some kind of aboutness interpretation and that direct aboutness topics receive wide scope. These sentences involve topical indefinites and allow for readings that, at first sight, seem to represent narrow scope readings of the indefinite. Contrastivity Before turning to more serious apparent counterexamples, recall that we have already discussed cases of left-dislocated DPs that were not topical, but had to be interpreted as contrastive, as in the following example in German (cf. Section 2.2). (5.23)

??

Ein BUCH, das hatte jeder Schüler dabei.

a

book

RP had every pupil

with him

‘Every pupil had brought a book with him.’ With the indicated intonation pattern (an accent on the NP-complement of the indefinite), the indefinite can only receive a narrow scope interpretation with respect to the universal quantifier and is extremely marked unless uttered in a context where ein Buch (a book) is contrasted with something else, e.g. a pen. In other words, (5.23) seems odd in isolation, but becomes much better when followed by (5.24) Aber an einen Stift hatten die wenigsten gedacht. but

on a

pen had

the fewest

thought

‘But only few had thought of bringing a pen.’ The indefinite in (5.23) takes narrow scope and it is felt that there is no aboutnessrelation involved here. This is not a contradiction to the claim that topical indefinites always denote the item the sentence is about in some direct or indirect sense, because the indefinite in (5.23) simply is not a sentence topic in this example, even though it appears in left-dislocated position. The function of the left dislocation construction is to mark the indefinite for contrastivity. This becomes obvious if we contrast (5.23) with its minimal variant in (5.25). (5.25) ↑EIN Buch, das hatte jeder Schüler dabei. some book RP had every pupil

(Nämlich das Englischbuch.)

with him namely

the English textbook

‘Every pupil had brought a certain book with him. (Namely the English textbook.)’


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The sentence supports only a wide scope reading for the indefinite. There is no contrastive flavor to the sentence. It simply means that there is some particular book that every pupil has brought along. The indefinite constitutes the direct aboutness topic of the sentence. Similar apparent counterexamples to the claim that topical indefinites take wide scope are given in (or can be constructed from examples in) (Ward and Prince, 1991) as has been mentioned in13 Chapter 2, Section 2.1.4. However, their examples do not challenge the claim that topical indefinites have to take wide scope, for most of their examples are such that the involved indefinites have to be read contrastively,14 which means that the same argument can be made for them as we made here for (5.23). The involved indefinites simply are not topical despite how they might appear. As shown above and in Section 2.2 of Chapter 2, most constructions that mark topicality are actually ambiguous between a topicality and a contrastivity promoting function. This probably also holds for English topicalization. Consider the original example from (Ward and Prince, 1991, ex. (7a)) in (5.27a) and the modified version in (5.27b) and its German variant involving left dislocation in (5.27c). (5.27)

a. Brains you are born with. A great body you have to work on. [Brooke Shields, in health club commercial] b. Brains you are born with. A great body everybody has to work on. c. Mit Verstand wird man geboren. (Brains you are born with.) ¨ Aber einen guten KORper, den muss sich jeder erarbeiten. but

a

good body

RP must self everybody work-on

‘A gread body, everybody has to work on.’ 13 Ward and Prince (1991) actually formulate a challenge to the claim that topical indefinites always have to be interpreted specifically (and not to the claim that they take wide scope). 14 The remaining examples of unspecific topical indefinites pose no problems for the account presented in this chapter either, because even those indefinites that Ward and Prince (1991) take to be unspecific indefinites can be shown to take wide scope in the presence of other scope-inducing operators. Consider the following examples.

(5.26)

a. How do you like your new job? I like a lot of it. Parts of it I don’t like at all. b. How do you guys like your new job? We all like a lot of it. But parts of it nobody likes at all. c. Wie findet Ihr die neue Arbeit? (How do you guys like your new job?) (Im Großen und Ganzen gefällt sie uns gut.) Teile davon, die kann aber niemand leiden. (Overall, we quite like it.) parts of-it RP can but nobody like ‘Overall, we quite like it. But parts of it nobody likes at all.’

Example (5.26a) is from (Ward and Prince, 1991). (5.26b) is a slight modification of this example involving a quantificational element in addition to the indefinite. Ward and Prince (1991) argue that (5.26a) contains an unspecific topical indefinite. Yet, (5.26b) illustrates that this does not tell anything about the scope-taking behaviour of the indefinite. (5.26b) has a reading in which the topical indefinite takes wide scope over the quantifier nobody. The same holds mutatis mutandis for the German equivalent in (5.26c). It can thus be argued that the indefinite in (5.26a) is a wide scope-taking, yet unspecific, indefinite (there simply is no other scope-inducing element that could falsify or verify this claim). Hence, examples along the lines of (5.26a) involving unspecific indefinites do not constitute counterexamples to the claim that indefinite aboutness topics always take wide scope.

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The indefinite a great body is topicalized, and topicalization can arguably be conceived of as a topic-promoting construction (see Chapter 2). Yet, the indefinite involved is not read specifically in (5.27a), which is what Ward and Prince (1991) claim on grounds of a very intuitive notion of specificity. The slight modification in (5.27b) shows that the fronted indefinite also seems to take narrow scope when another quantifier is involved. The same holds for the German variant involving left dislocation in (5.27c). My explanation for the felicitous narrow scope interpretation of the indefinites involved is the same as the one I gave for example (5.23) above. The indefinite simply is not topical, but rather marked as contrastive. Hence, there is no problem with its narrow scope interpretation. In example (5.27), the contrast is supplied in the preceding sentence. A great body is contrasted with brains. Genericity and Opacity Consider the following German examples. (5.28)

a. Ein PFERD, das hätte a

horse

wohl jeder

gerne.

RP would-have PART everyone like

‘Everyone would like to own a horse.’ ¨ das mag doch jeder. b. Ein KAsebrot, a

cheese sandwich RP likes PART everyone

‘Everyone likes cheese sandwiches.’ At first sight, it seems that the sentences have readings in which the topical indefinites take narrow scope. There seems to be no direct aboutness-relation involved. Neither is it plausible to assume that there is some hidden quantification over situations in these examples and that the topical indefinites can thus be conceived of as indirect aboutness topics. (5.28a) is not about some particular horse and neither is (5.28b) about some particular cheese sandwich. These sentences can furthermore not be analyzed as involving a tacit generic operator over situations in the way introduced above: they are simply not about situations containing a horse or a cheese sandwich, where this horse/cheese sandwich is desired to be owned/liked by everyone. Rather, the universal quantifier jeder (everyone) seems to take wide scope in both cases. One might assume that the decisive feature that sets the sentences in (5.28) apart from other well-behaved sentences (e.g. the ones in (5.1)) is opacity.15 By assuming Zimmermann’s (1993) approach to opacity, where the indefinite can be interpreted as a property in the relevant cases, one could argue that (5.28a) is about the property of being a horse and (5.28b) about cheese sandwiches in general. There are, however, problematic examples that do not lend themselves to this explanation. (5.29)

a. Einen FERNseher, den hat doch jeder. a

TV set

RP has PART everyone

‘Everyone owns a TV set.’ ¨ b. Ein KAsebrot, das hat doch jeder a

schonmal gegessen.

cheese sandwich RP has PART everyone once

eaten

‘Everyone has eaten a cheese sandwich at some point.’ 15 I thank Ede Zimmermann and Stefan Hinterwimmer for bringing up this idea and for discussion of these matters.


205

Neither (5.29a) nor (5.29b) involve an opaque operator. But crucially, they are clearly not episodic sentences, but have some generic flavor to them. This seems to be the reason why the left-dislocated indefinites are legitimate although they do not take wide scope. However, the sentences are not analyzable as involving a generic operator over situations – at least not as straightforwardly as in the cases discussed in previous sections. The exact analysis of the sentences in (5.28) and (5.29) has to be left open at this point and I can only point at the generic flavor that seems to be involved and seems to make the difference. Note that in (5.29b), the adverb schonmal (≈ once) is crucial for the felicity of the sentence and seems to turn the sentence into a generic one. A parallel truly episodic sentence such as (5.30) is infelicitous. ¨ das hat gestern abend jeder gegessen. (5.30) ∗ Ein KAsebrot, a

cheese sandwich RP has yesterday evening everyone eaten

‘Last night, everyone ate a cheese sandwich.’ Genericity seems to be the crucial feature and responsible for the fact that the examples in (5.29) are felicitous, although the topical indefinites seem to take narrow scope below the universal. How exactly these apparent narrow scope readings of the topical indefinites in generic sentences can be derived has to remain an open question at this stage. I will exclude such sentences from my observations from hereon and make claims only about episodic sentences.

Functional Topics There is another class of apparent counterexamples to my claim that direct aboutness topics always take wide scope. These are the functional wide scope readings discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. As pointed out in Chapter 3, functional wide scope readings can easily be confused with simple narrow scope ones. Reconsider example (3.45) repeated below. (5.31) ↑EIN Bild

von sich,

some picture of

das hatte u¨ berraschenderweise jeder Schüler


every pupil


‘Surprisingly, every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ The functional indefinite in left-dislocated position is a functional topic and constitutes a direct aboutness topic in the sense that (5.31) is about a picture-assigning function. My account will take care of these functional topics and assign them a functional wide scope interpretation. Hence, such readings do not challenge the claim that indefinite direct aboutness topics take wide scope. Recapitulating the results of this chapter so far, we have seen that there are several different cases of topical indefinites. Disregarding the problematic cases in (5.28) and (5.29), I have shown that topical indefinites have to represent aboutness topics in a direct or an indirect way. This means that they can be . . . a. direct aboutness topics, in which case they receive wide scope (this includes functional wide scope readings when the involved topical indefinite is a functional one),

206


b. indirect aboutness topics, when they define the kind of situation that a sentence is about, in which case the sentence receives a generic or a QV-reading, or c. property-denoting aboutness topics, when opacity is involved.

5.4 Does a Strong Interpretation Imply Topicality? It is important to note that I have only argued for one direction of the implication concerning topicality and strong interpretations so far, namely that topicality induces a strong interpretation. DPs marked as topics necessarily receive a strong interpretation. The remaining question is, of course, whether the other direction also holds: if we encounter a strong indefinite, does this mean that it is necessarily topical? Unfortunately, I have not come to a conclusive answer to this question yet. So I will only comment on it very briefly in the following. To approach the question of whether a strong interpretation implies topicality, it seems worthwhile to investigate Diesing’s (1992) claim that in German a DP that is scrambled to some VP-external position necessarily receives a strong interpretation (see 5.32a) and that, secondly, a non-scrambled DP is unambiguously associated with a weak interpretation (see 5.32b). (5.32)

a. . . . weil

Kinder ja doch auf der Straße spielen.

because children PART

on the street play

‘because children play on the street.’ b. . . . weil ja doch Kinder auf der Straße spielen. because PART

children on the street play

‘because children are playing on the street.’ (5.32a) means that children in general use to play on the street and (5.32b) has the preferred reading that some children are (just) playing on the street. Now one could furthermore argue that scrambled indefinites correspond to topical ones and nonscrambled indefinites to non-topical ones (cf. Jäger, 1996; Meinunger, 2000)16 . If there was such a one-to-one correspondence as Diesing claims, this would indeed suggest not only that topical indefinites always receive a strong interpretation, but also that non-topical ones receive a weak interpretation. Hence, all strong indefinites would be topical. However, Frey (2001) shows that in German, indefinites in base position can have strong interpretations and hereby argues against Diesing (1992) (cf. also Krifka, 2001a). Frey (2001) claims (attributing this observation to Haider and Rosengren, 1998; Frey and Pittner, 1998) that while (5.32a) indeed only receives a generic (i.e. strong) interpretation, (5.32b) is ambiguous between a generic and an existential 16 Note that both authors mentioned hold a familiarity view of topicality, which differs from the aboutness view that underlies the approach proposed here.


207

reading. In addition, he gives the examples in (5.33), which prove Diesing (1992) wrong. Consider the following example from (Frey, 2001, ex. (4), p. 139). (5.33)

a. . . . weil

Otto ja doch Fußballübertragungen anschaut.

because Otto PART

soccer broadcasts

watches

‘because Otto watches soccer broadcasts.’ b. . . . weil Abgeordnete Ostförderprogramme because deputies

ablehnten.

East German support programs rejected

‘because deputies rejected East German support programs.’ The direct objects in (5.33) can be interpreted generically or existentially. Under the assumption that the particle ja doch marks the VP boundary, the object in (5.33a) has to be inside the VP. Yet it receives a generic reading. Likewise, (5.33b) can have an interpretation where the subject is interpreted existentially, which means that it would have to be situated in the VP domain. At the same time, the object DP, however, has a possible generic, i.e. strong, interpretation, which would necessitate that it is interpreted outside of the VP. But due to the surface sequence in (5.33b), if the subject is situated in the VP domain, the object DP also has to be. The two constraints are obviously incompatible. (Frey, 2001, ex. (6), p. 140) shows that not only generic, but also other strong readings, i.e. what Frey calls ‘specific’ (cf. 5.34a) and partitive (cf. 5.34b) readings, are possible when an indefinite is situated in the VP. (5.34)

a. Hans möchte heute wem einen Artikel zeigen. Hans wants

today whom an

article show

‘Hans wants to show someone some article today.’ b. . . . weil wer zwei Linguisten in seinem Haus beherbergt. because who two linguists

in his

house hosts

‘because someone hosts some linguists in his house.’ An indefinite wh-pronoun cannot be scrambled (cf. e.g. Haider, 1993). Hence, the objects following the wh-pronouns wem (whom) and wer (who) in (5.34) have to be inside the VP. Nonetheless, the DP einen Artikel (some article) can receive a ‘specific’ interpretation. The sentence in (5.34a) could be followed by Nämlich den Phonologieartikel, den er gerade geschrieben hat (Namely the phonology article that he has just written up). Likewise, (5.34b) can be uttered in a situation where zwei Linguisten (two linguists) has to be read as ‘specific’ or partitive. What all this shows is that Diesing’s assumption of a one-to-one correspondence between a VP-internal or -external position and a weak/strong interpretation respectively, cannot be confirmed. However, what these examples do not show is whether the DPs involved are topical when they obtain strong interpretations. They might well be topical when they are not scrambled and receive strong interpretations (though not explicitly marked as topics in a way that we have identified as a topic-marking device). The question whether all strong DPs are necessarily topical remains an open question. The claim I want to maintain, however, is that topical indefinites receive a strong interpretation.

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5.5 Approaches Relating Exceptional Wide Scope to Topicality To my knowledge, there are two other approaches that explain the exceptional wide scope of indefinites based on their topical status: (Cresti, 1995) and (Portner and Yabushita, 2001)/(Portner, 2002). As discussed in Section 4.6.2 in the context of the presuppositional approaches to exceptional wide scope, (Cresti, 1995) explains the wide scope interpretation of an indefinite by the fact that it is topical. If an indefinite is interpreted as topical, it carries a presupposition that there is an individual fulfilling the indefinite’s restriction that is under discussion. This presupposition has to be accommodated, because indefinites themselves introduce something new. This accommodation in effect derives the wide scope readings. The core idea of Portner and Yabushita (2001) is very similar to the one of Cresti (1995). They build on the approach of Portner and Yabushita (1998), which itself is built on Vallduv´ı’s (1992) architecture of context updates. But whereas Vallduv´ı (1992) assumes information organisation to be a purely pragmatic issue, Portner and Yabushita (1998) argue that the notion of topic has some impact on truth-conditional semantics and is therefore best localized in the semantics component. They implement Reinhart’s (1981) idea of topic-relativized context update, i.e. that every update is done with respect to the most prominent argument of the predicate (which is most often the topic).17 But recall from Section 2.1.5 that – as opposed to Reinhart (1981) – they hold a familiarity view of topics and therefore expect (and discuss) only non-new entities as topics in their original paper from 1998. Therefore, Portner and Yabushita (2001) only discuss wide scope readings with proper nouns and only (related to attitude verbs) and not with genuine quantifiers, which are known to be non-discourse given. They show that wa-marked DPs in Japanese necessarily take wide scope when embedded under attitude verbs (see Portner and Yabushita, 1998, p. 140). Given a sentence s and a topic α, they give an intuitive reason for the wide scope interpretation of α (see Portner and Yabushita, 1998, p. 147): Since α must be structurally higher than everything else in s (in order to be the link), if it is a scope bearing element it will necessarily be given wide scope with respect to everything else [. . . ]. (5.35)

a. Jon -dake -ga

kuru to

omotte-ita.

Jon -only -N OM come COMP thought

‘I thought that only John would come.’ omotte-ita. b. Jon -dake -wa kuru to Jon -only -T OP come COMP thought

‘John is the only one who I thought would come.’ 17 For thetic or quantificational sentences, they assume that the event(ualtity) variable will play the role of the topic/link.


209

They assume that in (5.35b) just Jon is the topic but dake (only) has to stick with it. They point out that Jon-dake forms a syntactic constituent and an island for a potential movement of Jon alone. This seems to suggest that the structure eventually interpreted comes about via covert movement, although they do not elaborate on this. This in turn would mean that the context update is a syntactic process that has to obey island restrictions. In their more recent work, however, Portner and Yabushita (2001) are explicitly concerned with what they call ‘specific’ readings of indefinites, i.e. of non-given entities. But here also, the authors do not commit themselves to the view that topics can be unfamiliar items. They rather argue that ‘specificity’ is a consequence of interpreting an indefinite with a topical restrictor, in which case the restrictor set of the indefinite is presupposed. This is reminiscent of the notion of specificity in Enç (1991), where partitives are interpreted as referring back to a pre-established set. The same idea is also pursued in (Portner, 2002) with recourse to data from Mandarin Chinese. An indefinite is interpreted as ‘specific’ when the restrictor set is topical and contains only one individual. This comes close to Schwarzschild’s (2002) idea of singleton indefinites. Portner and Yabushita argue that all ‘specific’ indefinites in Japanese are either wa-marked or marked by the specificity marker aru. Ordinary indefinites without determiners lack a ‘specific’ interpretation. If the ‘specific’ – or what I call wide scope – interpretation of indefinites comes about due to the fact that these indefinites have topical singleton set restrictors, it remains to be explained why only a small subclass of the indefinites and no other (e.g. strong) quantifiers can be interpreted in such a way. The authors argue that, in fact, also the restrictor of strong quantifiers can be topical. Yet, the domain cannot be restricted to contain only one single element for reasons that have to do with the lexical semantics of the quantifier involved. For example the determiner every simply presupposes that its domain is non-singleton (cf. also Schwarzschild, 2002). They provide example (5.36) (from Portner and Yabushita, 2001, ex. (7), p. 276) in support of their claim that it is the restrictor and not the entire quantifier which is marked for topicality. (The indicated glosses and grammaticality judgments are from (Portner and Yabushita, 2001).) (5.36)

a. Heya wa subete biichi ni

menshite -imasu.

room T OP every beach L OC facing

b.

‘Every room faces the beach.’ Subete no heya wa biichi ni

??

every

-is

menshite -imasu.

of room T OP beach L OC facing

-is

‘Every room faces the beach.’ The authors argue that (5.36a) cannot be the floated version of (5.36b), which would mean that the entire quantifier is topic-marked and subete (every) has floated to the right, because (5.36b) is unacceptable. Hence it must be only the restrictor set which is topical. According to my informants18 though, (5.36a,b) are both grammatical. Tomioka (2007) also notes that subete no NP (all (of) NP) actually can be marked with wa. 18 These

were four native speakers of Japanese.

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The second argument Portner and Yabushita (2001) give in support of their analysis comes from the phenomenon of topic drop. As has been argued by Kuno (1972), only topical entities can be dropped.19 Portner and Yabushita (2001) use this fact to argue for the topical status of the restrictor of quantifiers. They give the examples in (5.37) (see Portner and Yabushita, 2001, ex. (25)–(27), p. 286), which are to be understood as uttered in a situation in which a particular hotel at Sunset Beach has been introduced and its properties are now discussed. (5.37)

a. Heya wa subete sansetto biichi ni room(s) T OP every Sunset

‘Every room faces Sunset Beach.’ b. Sansetto biichi wa subete no heya Sunset

menshite -imasu.

Beach L OC facing

-be

kara miemasu.

Beach T OP every of room(s) from seeable

‘Sunset Beach can be seen from every room.’ c. Taitee no kan’kookyku ga φ kini’itte -imasu. most

of tourists

N OM pro pleased -be

‘Most tourists like that/them/it.’ Portner and Yabushita (2001) report that in continuation of (5.37a), (5.37c) can either mean that most tourists like the rooms of the hotel or the fact that they face the beach. On the other hand, in continuation of (5.37b), it can either mean that the tourists like Sunset Beach or the fact that the beach is viewable from their rooms. This is predicted, because the null element φ should only refer back to topical items. While in (5.37b) it is undoubtedly sansetto biichi (Sunset Beach) which is topic-marked, in (5.37a) it is the NP-complement heya (rooms) of the involved quantifier heya wa subete (every room) that is marked for topic, so the authors argue. Furthermore, the reported event itself can always be topical, too. This explains the facts we observe. However, the example does not provide evidence that it is actually the restrictor set that is topical and not the entire quantifier itself. Although it is certainly the case that the set of rooms is not topical in (5.37b), it is not clear whether it is actually the restrictor set or the entire quantifier that is topical in (5.37a). As the example is constructed with a universal quantifier, the two cases cannot be told apart. Consider (5.38), where the original quantifier is replaced by the indefinite heya wa 3-tsu (three of the rooms). (5.38) Heya wa 3

-tsu (-ga)

sansetto biichi ni

room(s) T OP three -C L (-N OM) Sunset

menshite -imasu.

Beach L OC facing

-be

‘Three rooms face Sunset Beach.’ My informants agree that if (5.38) is followed by (5.37c), the sentence can be understood to say that most tourists like the three rooms that face Sunset Beach (and not all rooms of the hotel). So in (5.38) (which involves a floated quantifier), the entire quantifier seems to be marked as topical. The dropped element from the second sentence refers back to the three rooms that were introduced in the first sentence. This reading is available for (5.38) – independent of whether ga is suffixed to 3-tsu (three) or not. The sentence sounds most natural with this reading when ga is present. A possible 19 See

also (Fuller, 1988, Chapter 7) for a discussion of topic drop in Hmong.


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explanation for the ga-marking would be that the entire quantifier is topical (confirmed by the fact that it can be dropped later on), the determiner 3-tsu is floated out of the quantifier and marked for focus by ga. The quantifier three rooms can be seen as a partial topic, because the hotel (which is known to have rooms) must have been introduced beforehand. This would give further evidence for the view that partial topics can be interpreted as topics that contain a focused determiner (as discussed above, see e.g. Chapter 1).

5.6 Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that topicality always invokes a strong interpretation of the topic-marked constituent. I have furthermore shown that the predicational part of a sentence always embodies some kind of aboutness-relation towards the entity that is marked for topichood. This aboutness-relation can hold in a rather indirect way, as in the case of quantificiation over situations with adverbial quantifiers, or in a more direct way as in the case of determiner quantifiers. In the latter case, the topic-marked quantifier has been shown to take wide scope over all other operators involved. In the following chapter I will outline my approach to the interpretation of topical quantifiers as direct aboutness topics and show why a topical interpretation of a quantifier necessarily results in a wide scope interpretation of this quantifier. As this is an information-structural account of wide scope, it is expected that the mechanism is not sensitive to syntactic islands. Hence, I also predict exceptional wide scope for topical quantifiers.

Chapter 6

Exceptional Wide Scope as a Topic Phenomenon In this chapter, I will propose my account of the interpretation of topical quantifiers, which is at the same time an account of exceptional wide scope phenomena. The approach to the interpretation of quantificational topics can be understood as an elaboration on how exactly the previously mentioned mechanism M functions, which has been used for illustrative purposes so far and had to remain entirely vague until here. As has become clear by now, the class of quantifiers that can take wide scope out of islands coincides with the class of quantifiers which can inhabit topical positions. Recall that in Section 2.2, German left-dislocated elements were argued to host topical expressions only.1 (6.1)

a. ↑EIN Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. some horse RP has the bananas eaten

‘Some horse has eaten the bananas.’ b. ↑DREI / ↑EInige Pferde, die haben die Bananen gefressen. three / several horses RP have

the bananas eaten

‘Three / Several horses have eaten the bananas.’ c. ?? Mindestens drei / ?? Mehr als zwei Pferde, die haben die Bananen at-least

three /

more than two horses RP have

the bananas

gefressen. eaten

d.

??

Genau drei Pferde, die haben die Bananen gefressen.

exactly three horses RP have

the bananas eaten

e. ∗ Kein Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. no

horse RP has the bananas eaten

f. ∗ Höchstens drei / ∗ Wenige / ∗ Fast alle Pferde, die haben die at-most 1I

three / few

/ almost all horses RP have

the

disregard the complication of contrastive readings discussed there.

C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 6,

213

214

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS Bananen gefressen. bananas eaten

g. ? Die meisten / ? Alle / ?(?) Viele Pferde, die haben die Bananen the most

/ all

/

many

horses RP have

the bananas

gefressen. eaten

‘Most / All / Many horses have eaten the bananas.’ h. ∗ Jedes / ∗ Fast jedes Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. every / almost every horse RP has the bananas eaten

The quantifiers in (6.1a,b) are obviously well suited in topic position. The ones in (6.1g) are slightly marked, but more or less acceptable (although the viele (many)-DP is more marked than the other two). All others are excluded from this position. Now consider the wide scope behavior of these quantifiers. (6.2)

a. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn ein Pferd krank wird. Clarissa wonders herself if

some horse ill

becomes

‘Clarissa will be surprised if some horse falls ill.’ [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ] b. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn drei / einige Pferde krank werden. Clarissa wonders herself if

three / several horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if three / several horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ 3/several ] [3/several ≻ if ] c. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn mindestens drei / mehr als zwei Clarissa wonders herself if

at least

three / more than two

Pferde krank werden. horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if at least three / more than two horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ ≥ 3/> 2] ?? [≥ 3/> 2 ≻ if ] d. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn genau drei Pferde krank werden. Clarissa wonders herself if

exactly three horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if exactly three horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ = 3] ?? [= 3 ≻ if ] e. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn kein Pferd krank wird. Clarissa wonders herself if

no

horse ill

becomes

‘Clarissa will be surprised if no horse falls ill.’ [if ≻ ¬∃] ∗ [¬∃ ≻ if ] f. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn höchstens drei / wenige / fast Clarissa wonders herself if

at most

three / few

alle

/ almost all

Pferde krank werden. horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if at most three horses / few / almost all horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ ≤ 3/few /alm all ] ∗ [≤ 3/few /alm all ≻ if ]

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 215 g. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn die meisten Pferde krank werden. Clarissa wonders herself if

most

horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if most horses horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ most] ∗ [most ≻ if ] g’ Clarissa wundert sich, wenn alle Pferde krank werden. Clarissa wonders herself if

all horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if all horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ all ] [all collective ≻ if ] g” Clarissa wundert sich, wenn viele Pferde krank werden. Clarissa wonders herself if

many horses ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if many horses fall ill.’ [if ≻ many] ?? [many ≻ if ] h. Clarissa wundert sich, wenn jedes / fast jedes Pferd krank wird. Clarissa wonders herself if

every / almost every horse ill

become

‘Clarissa will be surprised if every / almost every horse falls ill.’ [if ≻ ∀/alm ∀] ∗ [∀/alm ∀ ≻ if ] We can see that the quantifiers in (a) and (b) can take exceptional wide scope and that those in (c–f) and (h) cannot. Only the quantifiers in (g) behave somewhat unexpectedly and not uniformly. We will discuss these quantifiers and their behavior below. For the moment simply notice that we find the same pattern in English. (6.3)

a. Clarissa will be surprised if some horse falls ill. [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ] b. Clarissa will be surprised if some / three / several horses fall ill. [if ≻ some/3/several ] [some/3/several ≻ if ] c. Clarissa will be surprised if at least three / more than two horses fall ill. [if ≻ ≥ 3/> 2] ?? [≥ 3/> 2 ≻ if ] d. Clarissa will be surprised if exactly three horses fall ill. [if ≻ = 3] ?? [= 3 ≻ if ] e. Clarissa will be surprised if no horse falls ill. [if ≻ ¬∃] ∗ [¬∃ ≻ if ] f. Clarissa will be surprised if at most three horses / few / almost all horses fall ill. [if ≻ ≤ 3/few /alm all ] ∗ [≤ 3/few /alm all ≻ if ] g. Clarissa will be surprised if most horses fall ill. [if ≻ most] ∗ [most ≻ if ] g’ Clarissa will be surprised if all horses fall ill. [if ≻ all ] [all collective ≻ if ] g” Clarissa will be surprised if many horses fall ill. [if ≻ many] ?? [many ≻ if ] h. Clarissa will be surprised if every / almost every horse falls ill. [if ≻ ∀/alm ∀] ∗ [∀/alm ∀ ≻ if ]

216


While many is assumed to take exceptional wide scope by some authors (see e.g. Reinhart, 1997), most, and all are usually not counted as belonging to the class of wide scope quantifiers. If we ignore group (6.1g), (6.2g–g”), and (6.3g–g”) for the moment – we will come back to these quantifiers later – it seems as if the class of topicable quantifiers was indeed the same as the class of wide scope takers in English and German. This suggests that exceptional wide scope and topicality can be correlated, as was argued in Chapter 5.

6.1 Deriving the Classification Existing approaches which aim at explaining exceptional wide scope phenomena are either limited in their applicability to a certain subclass of wide scope indefinites (singular ones, as e.g. Cresti, 1995) or have to stipulate two different interpretation mechanisms – one which applies to the members of the class of wide scope quantifiers and another which applies to the remaining ones (as e.g. the choice function approaches of Reinhart, 1997, Winter, 1997, and others). There are only very few proposals that actually derive the classification of wide scope indefinites and its complement class. I will discuss those in the following. Reinhart (1997) Reinhart (1997) bases her distinction on syntax and argues that the relevant wide scope ‘determiners’ such as some, three etc. are, in fact, not determiners and are not obliged to inhabit the SPEC -position of a DP as opposed to e.g. modified numerals such as more than three. She assumes the usual DP-structure [DP SPEC [D′ D NP ]]. D can host D-heads only (i.e. categories of the syntactic type X 0 ). As modified constituents cannot be heads, modified numerals cannot occur in that position. They have to occupy the SPEC -position and are hence interpreted as semantic determiners, which has the consequence that the entire DP is interpreted as a generalized quantifier. This is also an option for wide scope determiners such as bare numerals – i.e. they can occupy the SPEC -position and are interpreted as determiners. The entire DP is then interpreted as a GQ and has all the properties of ordinary GQs, in particular that their scope is island-restricted. But there is a second option for bare numerals: they can simply inhabit the D-position and receive some kind of adjectival treatment. Together with the NP-predicate they denote a property that the choice function variable f is applied to. This function variable is introduced in the SPEC -position and can be existentially closed from any position. Consequently, a choice function interpretation is only available if the SPEC -position is not filled. Reinhart’s (1997) syntactic approach towards a classification of wide scope quantifiers can explain the difference between modified numerals and non-modified ones, but not the difference between wide scope and non-wide scope indefinites in general. For example the difference between several N, which can take exceptional wide scope, and few N, which cannot, remains entirely unexplained. The following three proposals aim to distinguish the class of wide scope takers from other quantifiers by taking the semantic properties of the respective quantifiers into consideration.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 217 Szabolcsi (1997b) Szabolcsi (1997b) explains the local scope-taking behavior of different quantifiers and does not attempt to classify quantifiers that take exceptional wide scope. Nevertheless, she makes some predictions about topical quantifiers, which apply to the cases at hand. As alluded to above, it is assumed that Hungarian overtly realizes what most languages do covertly. In other words, the syntax of a Hungarian sentence realizes overtly what has to be assumed to be the LF of an English clause.2 Building on (Beghelli and Stowell, 1997) (and earlier work of these authors) and their assumptions for the LF of English sentences, Szabolcsi (1997b) assumes that different quantificational DPs have to check their associated semantic features in different positions. Now, the landing sites are associated with different kinds of interpretations for the DPs involved. In other words: there is no uniform movement operation such as QR, but movement is feature-driven, and certain positions check certain features. Szabolcsi argues that there is a specific Topic-position (HRefP in her terms and RefP in the system of Beghelli and Stowell, 1997) that can host certain quantifiers only, e.g. bare numeral and singular indefinites. She assumes that GQ-denoting DPs in Topic-position are interpreted as contributing a plural individual which corresponds to a minimal witness set3 of the GQ to the interpretation. This plural individual serves as the logical subject of the predication expressed in the sentence and its variable can be used for subsequent anaphoric reference. As the Topic-position is assumed to be the leftmost position, DPs interpreted in this position take widest scope over all other operators in the sentence4 (In Hungarian, the corresponding DP appears overtly in Topic-position; in English it has to be assumed that topical DPs are moved to this position covertly). A DP interpreted in Quantifier -position (HDistP in Szabolcsi’s terms), which can host other quantifiers such as universals, does not contribute a (plural individual corresponding to a) minimal witness set of the GQ, but simply a witness set to the interpretation of the sentence. A DP that cannot be interpreted in one of these positions (including most modified numeral quantifiers) does not contribute any entity to the interpretation of the sentence. Hence, no variable for subsequent anaphoric reference is introduced in this case. Szabolcsi’s proposal is strongly influenced by the work of Ben-Shalom (1993), whose aim was to account for the different scope-taking behavior of different quantifiers, i.e. to explain the fact that modified numeral objects cannot take wide scope over subject 2 There are some exceptions concerning in particular the postverbal field (for discussion see the Appendix in Szabolcsi, 1997b). 3 The definition of a minimal witness set is given in the appendix, Section A.1. 4 I do not see how exceptional wide scope readings can be accounted for in Szabolcsi’s system, however. If an indefinite is embedded in a syntactic island, it can also take exceptional wide scope in Hungarian, although usually Hungarian only allows for surface scope interpretation. I see no other way than to assume that a covert operation in Hungarian also accounts for these cases. Szabolcsi has a comment on this matter on p. 124, which I understand as saying that she proposes adopting the choice function mechanism of Reinhart (1997) (or something similar to it) to account for exceptional wide scope readings. In (Beghelli and Stowell, 1997), the authors say that they are not concerned with exceptional wide scope readings. However, they hold the view that the individual variable corresponding to a witness set of a GQ interpreted in RefP is bound by an existential operator over a restricted variable ranging over witness sets of the GQ. They attribute this idea to Anna Szabolcsi. However, both papers are not explicit about what such a mechanism for deriving exceptional wide scope would exactly look like. Note that the solution offered in (Beghelli, 1993) (existential closure of a free set variable introduced by bare numeral indefinites), which Beghelli and Stowell (1997) refer the reader to, runs into the Donald Duck problem (cf. Section 4.7), as has also been noted by (Reinhart, 1997, p. 364).

218


quantifiers (even locally). She proposed that sentences involving names, definites, specific indefinites, and universals on the one hand and those involving modified numeral quantifiers on the other are evaluated differently. In the first case, it is possible to check for each member of a set determined by the respective DP whether the property denoted by the predicate holds. This corresponds to a wide scope reading of the object. In the second case, this evaluation process is not possible, but the truth conditions of the respective sentence can only be evaluated in the usual way, i.e. by way of checking whether the intersection of the restrictor predicate and the VP-denotation fulfills the condition specified by the quantifier (e.g. for exactly three horses sleep one would have to check that the intersection of horses and sleeping individuals contains exactly three elements). Ben-Shalom’s procedure to invoke object wide scope is exactly the intuition behind Szabolcsi’s interpretation process for DPs in Topic-position. A minimal witness set of the GQ denoted by the DP in this position is determined, and then it is checked for each member whether it fulfills the property denoted by the VP. The quantifier thereby becomes the logical subject, i.e. the object of predication, or the (aboutness) topic of the utterance. It is also noted in (Wedgwood, 2004) that there is a clear intuitive connection between predicating over a witness set presented as the denotation of a QNP [quantificational noun phrase, CE] and the notion of that QNP being the topic of the sentence. (Szabolcsi, 1997b, p. 125) also notes that there is some connection to the thetic/categorical distinction, but that she is at present not in the position to judge how far a deeper parallelism might go, but [that, CE] this issue certainly merits further investigation. It is certainly no coincidence that quantifiers in topic-positions receive the witness-set interpretation Szabolcsi proposes. We will see below that this very interpretation follows from them being interpreted as topics and therefore serving as the key where the information that the sentence conveys needs to be stored. It follows from my treatment of topichood that these GQs behave like the logical subject when they are topical. Szabolcsi’s interpretation of GQs in Topicposition, which she ties to this very specific position, is probably better captured by an appropriate treatment of topicality, i.e. by an investigation of what it means for a quantifier to be interpreted topically, which is what I will do in the following. Let me cite (Wedgwood, 2004, p. 318) at this point, who argues against Szabolcsi’s treatment of focus and the grammaticalization of exhaustivity by anchoring it to a specific position in Hungarian. The following two quotes apply directly to our case at hand. I believe that Szabolcsi’s use of procedural encoding represents a very valuable insight, but one which she applies at an inappropriate level: the quantificational phenomena that she discusses are actually mere manifestations of much more fundamental procedures. He furthermore comments (p. 330): To do so [≈ to attribute certain interpretations to certain structural positions, CE] is to risk missing key generalizations, while complicating the grammar with machinery that only duplicates the work of independently necessary extra-grammatical processes..

Szabolcsi argues that it follows from her account that only monotone increasing quantifiers can inhabit the Topic- and the Quantifier -position, because only these quantifiers allow for existential quantification over a witness set without changing the truth conditions of the sentence. This was actually proven by Barwise and Cooper (1981). For instance, in the case of the GQ three horses, quantification over a witness set of

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 219 the GQ yields the correct result, as shown in (6.4a). In the case of the GQ at most three horses, on the other hand, it does not, as shown in (6.4b). (6.4)

a. |horse ∩ sleep| ≥ 3 ≡ ∃M [M ⊆ horse ∧ |M | ≥ 3 ∧ M ⊆ sleep] b. |horse ∩ sleep| ≤ 3 6≡ ∃M [M ⊆ horse ∧ |M | ≤ 3 ∧ M ⊆ sleep]

Hence, due to the interpretative mechanism in Topic- and Quantifier -position proposed by Szabolcsi, only monotone increasing quantifiers, but not monotone decreasing or non-monotonic quantifiers can inhabit these particular positions. She refers to this restriction as the increasingness constraint. Note that Szabolcsi gives no independent reason for her alleged interpretation mechanism, but simply stipulates it, although she notes that her mechanism is plausible, because there is some intuitive connection between topicality (= functioning as the logical subject) and the witness set interpretation. However, without providing an independent reason for this mechanism, the increasingness constraint, which regulates the correct restriction on quantifiers that are interpretable in Topic-position, remains a stipulation, too. If we correlate exceptional wide scope with topicality (which is not done in Szabolcsi’s framework), we can say that her account hints at why monotone decreasing and nonmonotonic quantifiers do not belong to the class of wide scope takers. But there is still no explanation for the fact that only a proper subclass of the increasing quantifiers can take exceptional wide scope, i.e. can be interpreted in Topic-position (while a much larger class is allowed for in Quantifier -position in Szabolcsi’s system). De Swart (1999) The aim of de Swart (1999) is to divide weak quantifiers into different groups according to certain properties that they share. She distinguishes three different classes of weak quantifiers, of which one class is the class of wide scope indefinites we are concerned with here (class II indefinites in the terminology of de Swart (1999)). Firstly, de Swart posits that ‘class II indefinites’ are necessarily monotone increasing. However, we know that not all monotone increasing quantifiers are wide scope indefinites. In particular, modified numerals have to be excluded. De Swart approaches this task by characterizing wide scope indefinites as those indefinites that can have a referential interpretation (of type e). Building on the type shift rules specified in (Partee, 1987), de Swart (1999) proposes extending Partee’s system and claims that all indefinites (or their corresponding sets) that can be shifted onto type e count as class II indefinites. The question that arises is, of course, which constraints govern this mapping algorithm from type he, ti or hhe, ti, ti onto e. Her idea is as follows: a domain D of some common noun N consists of (possibly plural) individuals (that are N ), which can be partitioned into non-empty, non-overlapping subsets X – so-called cells – such that the union of all sets X equals the original set D. Such a partition is always given – either by the context or by default if the partition is a very ‘natural’ one. A ‘natural’ partitioning, she says, would be one based on some natural identity criterion for the cells, i.e. where the elements of each cell have some unifying property. Now de Swart claims that those indefinites that characterize exactly one cell in the given partition are the ones that can be shifted to type e. The mapping algorithm that maps these indefinites to type e expressions simply requires choosing one element of the cell to which the indefinite corresponds. In de Swart’s view, a natural partitioning criterion would be the individual’s size, i.e. the number of atoms that the (plural)

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individuals are constituted of. Under the assumption that bare numeral DPs n N denote sets of (possibly plural) individuals of size n (and that modified numerals such as at least n N denote sets of (possibly plural) individuals of size ≥ n) and given a partition based on the ‘size’ criterion, it follows directly that bare numeral indefinites characterize one cell of this partition (in which all individuals are of the same size, i.e. of size n), whereas modified numeral indefinites do not. Hence, bare numerals allow for a shift to type e and thus a referential interpretation, and modified numerals do not. It is obvious that de Swart’s explanation crucially hinges on what is regarded as a natural identity criterion. She stipulates it to be ‘same size’ and hence it is not surprising that she singles out the right class of wide scope takers with respect to modified vs. unmodified numerals. De Swart argues that the context can, in fact, provide different partitions from the default ‘same size’ partitioning. In this case, modified numerals do allow for a typeshift to type e if they correspond to one cell of the partition. She argues that this is evidenced by the fact that modified numerals sometimes provide non-exhaustive discourse anaphoric readings,5 which she takes to be referential readings. In other words, she believes that there are cases where modified numeral indefinites can be shifted to a type e denotation, namely when a corresponding ‘degenerate’ partition is salient in the context. But such partitions are much less natural and certainly not the default. Hence, referential readings of modified numerals are much harder to obtain. As long as no independent reason is given why something like correspondence to a cell of a partition and the identity criterion of these cells should matter for a type shift in the first place, and why furthermore the number of constituting atoms should be a sensible identity criterion, this account still leaves open the most intriguing question: what is the underlying reason why only bare numeral DPs allow for exceptional wide scope or – in de Swart’s terminology – for a referential interpretation? Furthermore, if there is some room for vagueness in the way the partition is built up, de Swart claims that she can treat vague quantifiers such as many N or plural some N, which she counts as wide scope takers, along similar lines as bare numeral indefinites. However, it is not clear how many N differs essentially from e.g. more than three N in the relevant aspects such that the former allows for type e-shifting, but the latter does not, because in neither case can the underlying criterion be the ‘same size’ criterion. Umbach (2005) Umbach’s paper is directly concerned with a question that will be addressed in the remainder of this book: why do modified numerals resist an exceptional wide scope – or in her terms: referential – interpretation? Her answer is built on the approach of (Krifka, 1999), where at least and more than are analyzed as focus operators. Recall from Section 4.2 that in Krifka’s approach at least can be applied to the denotation of a full DP, for instance three horses, which is assumed to be the case in (6.5b). Krifka aims at an explanation for why modified numerals do not give rise to scalar implicatures, but unmodified ones do. Consider the following example. (6.5) 5 For

a. Dena’s family owns three horses. b. Dena’s family owns at least three horses.

discussion of exhaustive and non-exhaustive anaphoric readings see Section 6.2.1.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 221 While (6.5a) clearly implicates that Dena’s family keeps three horses and no more, (6.5b) does not allow for such a conclusion. Under the standard view, which is that at least three N and three N have the same lexical semantics, the contrast in (6.5) comes as a surprise. Krifka therefore argues that at least has to be analyzed as a focus operator and this operator ‘uses up’ the focus alternatives of the constituent it is applied to, very roughly speaking. Under the assumption that in (6.5a,b) three is in focus, sentence (6.5a) clearly evokes the alternatives that Dena’s family owns three horses as opposed to four, five, etc. Now, the implicature arises that the speaker has made the most informative utterance among its alternatives. Hence, the hearer concludes that the speaker has no evidence that Dena’s family owns more than three horses. In the case of (6.5b), however, the sentence turns out to mean (under its ordinary semantic meaning) that Dena’s family owns three or four or five etc. horses and no implicature arises. The focus operator at least uses certain focus alternatives of the expression it applies to in a way that it builds the big union of these alternatives to yield the ordinary semantic value. Here, the relevant alternatives are the numbers that are equal to or higher than 3 on a given scale, i.e. all numbers greater than 2. Thus, the alternatives are ‘used up’ at this point and no alternatives are left over that would give rise to a scalar implicature. It is now argued by Umbach (2005) that, as a by-product, this mechanism provides a reason why modified numerals cannot be interpreted referentially. The union-operation is only defined for sets (or conjoinable types to be precise), but not for type e elements, so at least, which makes use of this union-operation, can only operate on sets, but not on individuals. Crucially, if it operates on expressions of type hτ, ti, it yields something of the same type hτ, ti. Hence the result of at least applied to some constituent C can only be of set-type. Apparent counterexamples such as At least John came, where at least seems to operate on individuals, are handled by the assumption that John denotes a generalized quantifier and not an individual. Because at least can only operate on sets and not on individuals and as a result can only yield sets, at least(C) can never be of type e and thus cannot be interpreted referentially. Umbach furthermore argues that it is not just a technical result of the specific treatment of the union-operation that individuals cannot be disjunctively conjoined. She argues that individuals, quite generally, cannot be conjoined via disjunction to form a new plural individual that could invoke a wide scope reading. (Umbach, 2005, Section 8) provides data that seem to substantiate this prediction: 1. she shows that the disjunctive DP three boys or four boys cannot take wide scope over the subject in Every girl kissed three boys or four boys and 2. she provides data that suggest that non-exhaustive reference anaphoric readings (which in her approach come about only by a referential interpretation of the respective DP) are excluded for such disjunctive DPs. However, as far as I can see, the claim that disjunctive DPs do not allow for wide scope readings directly contradicts (Schlenker, 2006), who points out that disjunctions sometimes even support islandescaping readings. This is illustrated by the following example from (Schlenker, 2006, ex. 39, p. 307). (6.6) Not a single student who picked Greek or Latin passed the exam. According to Schlenker, (6.6) can have the reading that there is one specific subject x, either Greek or Latin, and no student who picked x passed the exam. If this reading

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actually exists, this would be an instance of a wide scope-taking disjunctive DP and thereby a counterexample to Umbach’s prediction. However, Umbach’s (2005) approach provides a conclusive explanation for the fact that modified numerals behave differently from unmodified ones concerning their potential to be interpreted referentially. Yet it cannot explain why certain other indefinites, e.g. few N, do not support exceptional wide scope readings. In the following, I will give an entirely different explanation for the missing wide scope readings of modified numerals and other non wide scope takers. This explanation is based on the assumption that modified numeral DPs are ordinary GQs. I will argue that such GQs cannot be interpreted ‘referentially’, because they cannot be interpreted as sentence topics.

6.2 Technical Preliminaries I will briefly review the technical preliminaries upon which my proposal is built. First, I will motivate the quantifier semantics that I make use of by presenting some empirical data. I make use of the concepts of Dynamic Semantics (see Staudacher, 1987, Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1991 cf. also Heim, 1982), which regulate the accessibility restrictions of discourse referents concerning anaphoric reference. Although my approach is phrased in terms of the Dynamic Predicate Logic of (Groenendijk and Stokhof, 1991), nothing hinges on this choice. Furthermore, I adopt the view that a speaker’s utterance leads to an update of a common ground.

6.2.1

Quantifier Semantics

In this section, I will review the empirical findings concerning the semantics of generalized quantifiers. I will argue for a modification of the standardly assumed semantics in favor of a definition that directly encodes the dynamic behavior of the respective DP in its lexical semantics (in the spirit of Kadmon, 1985). At the end of this section, I will discuss some putative objections to this view and possible responses to these objections. Reflecting Anaphoric Possibilities in the Lexical Quantifier Semantics The following pair of examples illustrates the difference between three and at least three in terms of anaphoric possibilities and exhaustivity; the latter allows only for exhaustive anaphoric reference (see Kadmon, 1985; Kamp and Reyle, 1993; Szabolcsi, 1997b)6 : (6.7)

a. Yesterday, three linguists came to Peter’s party. They all ate a lot of cake.

(non-exhaustive).

6 (Reinhart, 1997, p. 385) also discusses this phenomenon (and assigns its observation to Kamp and Reyle, 1993), but she does not come to the conclusion that these findings should be reflected in the semantics of the respective indefinites.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 223 b. Yesterday, at least three linguists came to Peter’s party. They all ate a lot of cake.

(exhaustive)

The first sentence of the statement in (6.7a), containing three linguists, is compatible with a situation in which there were more than three linguists at yesterday’s party. However, with the second sentence, the speaker does not assert that more than three linguists ate a lot of cake: they in the second sentence refers to a set of three linguists, irrespective of how many linguists actually were at yesterday’s party. The facts are different for the statement in (6.7b). The first sentence of (6.7b) is compatible with exactly the same situations as the first sentence of (6.7a). However, in contrast to (6.7a), the speaker asserts with the second sentence that more than three linguists ate a lot of cake in a situation where more than three linguists were at yesterday’s party. To be more precise: if six linguists were at yesterday’s party, the anaphor they can only refer to the set of all six linguists that were at the party and not to a set of five or four.7 In this case, only exhaustive reference to the entire intersection of the NP-denotation (linguists) and the VP-denotation (people who came to the party) is possible, whereas in the case of (6.7a), non-exhaustive reference is possible. This matter of exhaustivity is entirely determined by the choice of the determiner (three vs. at least three) and not influenced by the grammatical, pragmatic, or informationstructural role of the respective DP. In (6.7), the decisive DP is in subject position and it could be taken to constitute the topic of its sentence (at least in the case of (6.7a)). In (6.8a,b) however, it is the subject, but clearly non-topical – recall that there-sentences are usually assumed to be topicless – and in (6.8c,d), it constitutes the object and is clearly focal. Yet, in all cases the exhaustivity facts remain the same: three linguists allows for non-exhaustive reference and at least three linguists only for exhaustive reference.8 (6.8)

a. There are three mathematicians Peter knows. Once, he invited them to a party... (non-exhaustive) b. There are at least three mathematicians Peter knows. Once, he invited them ? (all) to a party... (exhaustive) c. Peter knows three mathematicians. Once, he invited them to a party... (non-exhaustive) d. Peter knows at least three mathematicians. Once, he invited them ? (all) to a party... (exhaustive)

7 There is a marginal possibility that the pronoun refers back to a set of three linguists in (6.7b). I assume that this is a reading where three linguists is interpreted as a GQ and at least is a focus operator that is applied to it (cf. Section 4.2 for discussion). I will ignore this complication in the following. Crucially, no reference to a set of less than all linguists that came to the party is possible if at least three is replaced by more than two. Furthermore, in both cases anaphoric reference to a set of four or five linguists is impossible in the context that was set up. 8 Note that the follow-up sentences of the exhaustive variants (6.8b,d) are slightly degraded without insertion of the distributivity operator all. Note also that intuitions might be slightly blurred because (6.8c), in one reading, can trigger the implicature that Peter knows no more than three mathematicians. Yet, this implicature can be explicitly canceled by adding something like In fact, he knows five to the utterance in (6.8c). Even in this case, the pronoun them can refer only to a set of three linguists.

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Anaphoric possibilities should hence be directly reflected in the lexical semantics of the respective quantifiers. They are independent of the use of the respective DP, but dependent on its lexical shape. Note that this conclusion is different from the one drawn in (Szabolcsi, 1997b) (see discussion below). I follow Kadmon (1985), who treats bare numeral and modified numeral indefinites alike and represents both kinds as directly introducing plural discourse referents. I generalize this idea to GQs in general. In other words, wide scope GQs as well as all other GQs are treated as introducing (plural) discourse referents. Hence, all GQs employ existentially quantified discourse referents, which allow for the respective (non-) exhaustive reference in a dynamic setting. The anaphoric properties of a quantifier are thereby anchored to its lexical meaning. This yields the following semantics for a numeral determiner n: (6.9)

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ]

n

This definition contains one existentially bound plural variable (of type he, ti) which will therefore be dynamically accessible in further discourse. It refers to a subset of the intersection of restrictor and nucleus (i.e. to a subset of the set of P which Q) and thus I shall call it a non-exhaustive quantifier. For at least n the semantics has to be changed only slightly to account for the exhaustivity effects observed above: (6.10)

at least n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

Again, one existentially bound plural variable is introduced, but this time it refers to the entire intersection of restrictor and nucleus (i.e. to the entire set of P which Q) and thus I shall call it an exhaustive quantifier. This gives us the following quantifier semantics for modified and unmodified numeral quantifiers: (6.11)

n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ]

at least n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

exactly n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

at most n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≤ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

Note that concerning static truth conditions the semantics for n and at least n are equivalent, as it is commonly assumed. With respect to dynamic semantics however, these definitions account for the facts concerning exhaustivity. The anaphoric possibilities of a GQ are now a matter of (dynamic) semantics and not only of pragmatics. We will see that this move together with the approach to topic/wide scope interpretation that will be introduced below allows for the correct classification of topic/wide scope quantifiers to be derived. This is precisely because anaphoric possibilities are taken into account when studying the semantics of a GQ. This view contradicts Reinhart (1997, p. 386), who writes that introducing the ‘discourse referent’ property is not, in itself an answer to our problem [the correct classification of GQs into exceptional wide scope takers and others, CE], since this is not an inherent property of determiners or NPs, and the puzzle still remains why just the set of bare numeral indefinites should have this discourse function. Although I have no explanation for the fact that only bare numeral quantifiers allow for non-exhaustive discourse referents, I take this as an empirical fact

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 225 that has to be reflected in the lexical semantics of the quantifier itself. This property will become a relevant feature when we have to distinguish between wide scope takers and non-wide scope takers. We will see below why this is so. Other quantifiers are defined accordingly. (6.12)

every all most several few

λP λQ.∀x[P (x) → Q(x)] ≡ λP λQ.P ⊆ Q λP λQ.∃X[ P ⊆ Q ∧ X = P ∩ Q ] λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ 12 |P | ∧ X = P ∩ Q ] λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ], where n is context dependent λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≤ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ], where n is small and context dependent

Note that several N and few N are both contextually dependent quantifiers, but while several N is constructed as a non-exhaustive quantifier, few N denotes an exhaustive quantifier. The proposed quantifier semantics reflects speakers’ judgments concerning anaphoric reference data along the lines of (6.7). (6.13)

a. Several mathematicians were at the party yesterday. They danced all night. b. (?) The other mathematicians at the party only drank a lot.

While the continuation in (6.13b) is felicitous for most speakers,9 an analogous discourse with few mathematicians is excluded. (6.14)

a. (Only) few mathematicians were at the party yesterday/There were (only) few mathematicians at the party yesterday. They danced all night. b. # The other mathematicians at the party only drank a lot.

Possible Objections and Answers Witness Sets vs. Minimal Witness Sets The assumption that a quantifier’s anaphoric possibilities should be directly reflected in the lexical semantics of this quantifier and that these anaphoric possibilities are independent of the quantifier’s syntactic position or its information-structural role directly contradicts Szabolcsi (1997b). Szabolcsi (1997b) starts from a rather impoverished GQ semantics and then assumes that the landing site of the quantifier determines the exact interpretation of the GQ, including the choice of the variable that is introduced for subsequent anaphoric use. It is assumed that one and the same DP can eventually feature different interpretations, as different landing sites introduce different kinds of discourse referents. In particular, DPs in Topic-position introduce a plural individual corresponding to a minimal witness set and DPs in Quantifier -position introduce a set variable corresponding to a witness set of the GQ. In all other positions no such variables are 9 I have checked the example with several English native speakers. Most of them judged the discourse as coherent, but some refused it.

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introduced. Szabolcsi (1997b) presents the following set of data to support of her view (Szabolcsi, 1997b, p. 135, ex. (54)). (6.15)

a. A: Több, mint hat diákunk félree´rtette

a kérdést.

more than six student aside-understood the question

‘[More than six of our students]Quantifier P misunderstood the question.’ B: Lehet, hogy még másokat találsz. Maybe you will find others, too. b. A: Több, mint hat diákunk e´rtette félre a kérdést. more than six student understood aside the question

‘[More than six of our students]PredOpP misunderstood the question.’ B: # Lehet, hogy még másokat találsz. Maybe you will find others, too. Suppose that the utterances in (6.15) are interpreted in a situation where two teachers are in the middle of correcting exams. After having looked at some of the exams, one of the teachers (A) utters (6.15a), meaning that she has already found more than six examples where the corresponding student has misunderstood the question. Teacher B can then felicitously continue with the second sentence of (6.15a), indicating that she believes that A might possibly find other such examples in the course of her correction process. The discourse in (6.15b), however, where the subject DP – according to Szabolcsi – appears in PredOp-position in the first sentence, would not be felicitous. Szabolcsi claims that this contrast shows that in Quantifier -positions, a witness set discourse referent W (as opposed to a minimal witness set that is created in Topicpositions) is created. For the GQ more than six students, such a witness set is a set consisting of more than six elements that satisfy the restrictor predicate, i.e. of at least seven students (see Section A.1.2 of the appendix). All sets of more than six students are witness sets for the GQ at hand. In the first sentence of (6.15a), where Szabolcsi assumes that such a witness set W is introduced, others then can refer to students outside of W who also misunderstood the question. In (6.15b), where, according to Szabolcsi, no such witness set is created, there is no set that others could possibly refer to. The only set that is introduced by the sentence itself is the maximal set R of all students who misunderstood the question (e.g. via some kind of E-type interpretation mechanism). But this leaves no students outside this reference set R that others could possibly refer to in the second sentence of (6.15b). Hence the continuation of B to what A says in (6.15b) is odd. However, as we will see, the facts embodied by (6.15) have to be interpreted differently. Crucially, no matter whether it is the first sentence of (6.15a) or the first sentence of (6.15b) that is continued by a sentence containing a plural pronoun such as they, this pronoun can only refer back to the entire set of students (of which the speaker knows) that (they) have misunderstood the question.10 Consider the following continuation of (6.15a,b).11 10 I

thank Katalin Kiss for providing me with her native speaker judgments. have been told that (6.16) sounds more natural if the pronoun azok (they) is omitted. Still, (6.16) is a possible follow-up sentence of (6.15a,b), which is all that matters for our concerns. 11 I

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 227 (6.16) Azok nem figyeltek

oda.

they not pay-attention PART

‘They did not pay attention.’ Let us assume that at the time of utterance, the speaker knows of ten students who have misunderstood the question. Then it is by no means possible that he picks out a set of nine, eight, or seven students who have misunderstood the question such that the pronoun azok (they) in (6.16) refers to this set and not to the entire set of ten students. But this should be possible under Szabolcsi’s treatment, because here it is assumed that in Quantifier -position (i.e. in (6.15a)) a witness set of the quantifier (i.e. a set of seven, eight, nine or ten students) is introduced. Consequently, anaphoric reference to this set should be possible. But apparently this is impossible – regardless of which position the DP is interpreted in.12 The case at hand is even clearer if (6.15a) is followed by the Hungarian equivalent of They will be allowed to repeat the test. It is quite clear that, in a scenario where fifteen students altogether misunderstood the question and thus failed the exam, the follow-up sentence can only mean that all of them are allowed to repeat the test and not just a set of, say, thirteen privileged students. If in (6.15a), however, an arbitrary witness set was introduced as proposed by Szabolcsi (1997b), this could happily be a set of thirteen students and subsequent anaphors should be able to refer back to this set, contrary to fact. From this I conclude that it is not correct to treat (monotone increasing) modified numerals in certain positions as introducing a witness set of their corresponding GQs that could be used for subsequent anaphoric reference. These quantifiers actually always allow only for exhaustive reference to the entire intersection of the DP’s restrictor predicate and the sentence’s VP-predicate (cf. also the data in (6.8)). This conclusion differs in a very important respect from the one drawn in Szabolcsi, but the data at hand leave no room for a different conclusion. In other words, (6.16) shows that quantifiers never introduce witness sets for subsequent reference, but should be treated as proposed in (6.12). The semantics proposed in (6.12) predicts that reference to the existentially closed plural variable X, which equals the intersection of restrictor set and VP for exhaustive quantifiers, is the only option for further anaphoric reference, which is what we observe by means of data such as (6.16). What has yet been unanswered is the question of what is the origin of the contrast in (6.15). As I have pointed out above, Szabolcsi’s explanation fails eventually. A step towards an answer might be the assumption that the DP több, mint hat diákunk (more than six students) has to be interpreted exhaustively in (6.15b), but not in (6.15a). This view again contradicts Szabolcsi (1997b), who claims that DPs in PredOp-position do not receive an exhaustive interpretation. In (Wedgwood, 2004) however, it is convincingly argued that Szabolcsi’s PredOp-position and her Focus-position, which she additionally assumes, are, in fact, one and the same position (one very obvious argument being that the same restrictions concerning the class of quantifiers that can 12 Note also that (Umbach, 2005, footnote 6) remarks that example (6.15), translated into German, is only felicitous if others is translated with mehr (more) instead of andere (others), which would be the standard translation and the best choice if more than six students was replaced by six students. This once more indicates that Szabolcsi’s example does not merely test discourse anaphora in the usual sense, but that something else seems to be at issue here.

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appear in these positions apply to both positions). I will therefore assume that the subject quantifier in (6.15b) actually appears in Focus-position and hence receives an exhaustive interpretation.13 The contrast between (6.15a) and (6.15b) is then easily explained. If speaker A utters the first sentence of (6.15b), she can do so to indicate that the members of a set of more than six students, of which she is aware at the point of utterance, and no more relevant people or students have misunderstood the question. In other words, the restrictor set students is implicitly restricted so as to only denote students that she is aware of, i.e. students whose tests she has already looked through. Due to the exhaustive interpretation of the sentence, it makes no sense for B to continue with the second sentence in (6.15b), because, obviously, A thinks that the students she just mentioned exhaust the set of people/students that misunderstood the question. In the case of (6.15a), one can still assume that the set of students is implicitly restricted to students that the speaker is aware of. But this time, no exhaustive interpretation is triggered and hence B can remark that it is possible that A will find even more instances of such students who misunderstood the question, in addition to those she just mentioned and is aware of at the time of utterance. This is an alternative way to look at the data set in (6.15). I conclude that the data in (6.15) do not constitute a convincing argument for Szabolcsi’s treatment of GQs and the fact that the anaphoric possibilities of a GQ depend on its landing site. I will hence retain the assumption that anaphoric possibilities should be directly reflected in the lexical semantics, as I have proposed in (6.11) and (6.12).

Collective vs. Distributive Readings The lexical quantifier semantics I proposed above, which relies on (Kadmon, 1985), differs in relevant respects from the seminal DRT approach of (Kamp and Reyle, 1993, Sections 4.1–4.4.3), where only certain indefinites – the wide scope GQs in my terminology – introduce (non-exhaustive) discourse referents and all other GQs are treated as genuine quantifiers which do not introduce any discourse referents.14 In Kamp and Reyle’s approach, exhaustivity is accounted for by means of an additional abstraction operation. Reconsider (6.7) from above, repeated as (6.17). 13 For questions concerning whether certain focus positions in Hungarian necessitate exhaustive interpretations and which ones these are see (Kiss, 1998) for discussion. According to Wedgwood’s (2004) account, exhaustivity is not a direct semantic effect that comes about by interpreting DPs in focus-position, but follows from more general semantic and pragmatic principles. What is important is that there is no doubt that a phrase in preverbal position can be coerced to be interpreted exhaustively (for pragmatic or other) reasons, which seems to be the case in (6.15b). 14 As a matter of fact, Kamp and Reyle (1993) modify this view in Section 4.4.4 of their book, where they consider the possibility of representing so-called cardinality quantifiers such as at least three students or many students (as opposed to proportional quantifiers such as most students ), which can be reduced to a property of the intersection of their restrictor and nucleus, as directly introducing exhaustive plural referents. By this treatment, they can – among other things – account for the grammaticality of cardinality quantifiers (and the ungrammaticality of proportional ones) in there -sentences. The semantics of the cardinality quantifiers they suggest in this section is very similar to the one proposed by Kadmon (1985), presented above. It makes use of the abstraction operation, which is independently motivated in their approach and which I explain in the main text.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 229 (6.17)

a. Yesterday, three linguists came to Peter’s party. They all ate a lot of cake. (non-exhaustive). b. Yesterday, at least three linguists came to Peter’s party. They all ate a lot of cake. (exhaustive)

An indefinite such as three linguists denotes a plural variable X with the restriction that X has to be a set of three linguists. A plural pronoun such as they in the second sentence of (6.17a) can directly refer to this variable X. The determiner at least three, on the other hand, does not introduce a plural discourse referent itself, but simply relates two sets to each other (the set of linguists to the set of people who came to the party in the case of (6.17b)). The pronoun they in the second sentence of (6.17b) can refer back to the intersection of these two sets, i.e. the set of linguists who came to the party. This happens by way of the so-called abstraction operation, where all individuals that meet the restrictor property and the nucleus property are collected in one set X. The pronoun can then refer back to this set X. Kadmon’s assumption (which I adopted) that all plural quantifiers introduce plural discourse referents by themselves (and not only a proper subset of them as proposed by Kamp and Reyle, 1993) accounts for the intersentential anaphora data shown in (6.17) just as well as does the DRT approach of (Kamp and Reyle, 1993) in combination with their abstraction operation. At first sight, however, Kadmon’s proposal has certain disadvantages concerning the explanatory force of intrasentential anaphora data as discussed in (Kamp and Reyle, 1993) (for related examples in Hungarian see Szabolcsi, 1997b).15 Specifically, in the framework of (Kamp and Reyle, 1993), the abstraction operation can only be performed when both arguments of the determiner have been completely processed. It is thus predicted that intersentential anaphoricity is possible with quantifiers such as at least three linguists, but that intrasentential anaphoricity is not (for the anaphoric pronoun would be situated within an argument of the determiner, which has not been fully processed at the moment the pronoun is to be handled, and hence abstraction cannot be implemented at that stage).16 This prediction seems indeed to be borne out. Consider the following contrast (the example is adopted from Kamp and Reyle, 1993, p. 324). (6.18)

a. Three lawyersi hired a secretary theyi liked. b. At least three lawyersi hired a secretary theyi liked.

Kamp and Reyle argue that (6.18a) has at least two readings: 1. a distributivedistributive-reading saying that three lawyers each hired a secretary and every lawyer liked the secretary she hired and 2. a collective-collective-reading in which reference is made to the entire set of three lawyers and all three lawyers hired a secretary together, whom they all liked. They also report that their treatment of plural quantifiers 15 I am indebted to Werner Frey for drawing my attention to the following collectivity and intrasentential anaphora data and pointing me to the possible problems of my approach in dealing with them. 16 I assume that even in the modified version introduced in Section 4.4.4 of (Kamp and Reyle, 1993), where cardinal quantifiers such as at least three students or many linguists introduce exhaustive plural discourse referents, intrasentential plural anaphora with these quantifiers would be prohibited, because these representations make use of abstraction, which can only be carried out when the VP has been fully processed (for what such a representation looks like see Kamp and Reyle, 1993, p. 455). However, Kamp and Reyle do not discuss this.

230


assigns a third reading to (6.18a), which would be a distributive-collective-reading, namely: each lawyer hired her own secretary and the respective secretaries are all liked by all three lawyers. Crucially, they admit that they are unsure whether this third reading actually exists.17 According to Kamp and Reyle, (6.18b) only has the distributive-distributive-reading. In other words, the pronoun they cannot refer to a collection consisting of at least three lawyers, but only to each of the lawyers individually. Hence, (6.18b) only has the reading that at least three lawyers hired a secretary each and every lawyer likes the secretary she hired. This contrast follows straightforwardly from the assumption that the GQ at least three lawyers – as opposed to three lawyers – does not introduce a discourse referent, i.e. a set variable. Furthermore, the abstraction operation can only apply after the sentence has been fully processed. As the pronoun they is part of the VP itself, anaphoric reference to a set of at least three lawyers is excluded in (6.18b) – so is the line of argument in (Kamp and Reyle, 1993). Under the Kadmonian treatment of quantification in which all quantifiers introduce set variables, the non-existent set reference reading of (6.18b) has to be ruled out on independent grounds. In view of examples such as (6.18), Kamp and Reyle’s solution to the anaphora problem would clearly be the preferred option, because these data fall out automatically. However, there are other examples that make Kadmon’s (1985) treatment of GQs appear more likely to be the correct one and argue against the DRT approach. Such examples are given below and are also discussed in (Kamp and Reyle, 1993, ex. (4.260), p. 471). (6.19)

a. Most/At least three students met at the entrance. b. Most/At least three students gathered at the entrance. c. Most/At least three students went to the cinema together.

It is quite clear that the sentences in (6.19) allow for some kind of collective interpretation.18 If the GQs most students or at least three students are assumed to introduce plural discourse referents (i.e. set variables) as Kadmon proposes, the collective readings can be accounted for straightforwardly. If not, as Kamp and Reyle (1993) assume, these readings have to be derived otherwise, which means that an additional mechanism has to be stipulated that can derive these readings (for what such a mechanism could like see Kamp and Reyle, 1993, Section 4.4.6 and Szabolcsi, 1997b, Section 6). It seems that (6.18) argues for an approach along the lines of the (original) proposal in (Kamp and Reyle, 1993) and against the Kadmonian approach, whereas (6.19) 17 They discuss whether the third reading exists only in the context of plural definite subjects such as the lawyers (pp. 353–54.), but I take it that what they say about these subjects equally carries over to the case of bare numeral subjects. 18 This is also acknowledged by Reinhart (1997). However, she argues in line with Winter (1997) that the predicates exemplified in (6.19) are not instances of genuine collective predicates. Genuine collectivity is embodied by predicates such as to be a good team or to weigh two pounds, but not by to meet or to gather. Reinhart argues that a semantic distinction between these two groups of collective verbs can be made on the basis of a differentiation made by Dowty (1986). Dowty suggests that the predicates of the second group are to some extent distributive on a lower level (there are sub-entailments regarding the role of each member of the set in the collective activity (Reinhart, 1997, p. 384)), whereas the predicates of the first group are genuinely collective. Reinhart therefore only takes the first group of predicates as diagnostics for collectivity readings.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 231 argues against the DRT approach and for the Kadmonian approach. I conclude that these collectivity data cannot decide this matter and, at least, do not give evidence against Kadmon’s analysis, which I have adopted. Note that also (Reinhart, 1997, p. 386, footnote 38) mentions that data as in (6.18) cannot help to arrive at a decision concerning the correct treatment of indefinites or GQs and their anaphoric properties: Though the judgments are very clear, it is not fully clear what this [data such as (6.18), CE] is a test for. Possibly this is just a clearer way to show that NPs of the first type [wide scope indefinites, CE] take a collective reading much more easily than the second [non wide scope GQs, CE]. Let me strengthen this point. It is shown in (Kamp and Reyle, 1993) that, quite generally, collective readings are very marginal with most kinds of quantifiers if a distributive reading is available and that they are much more easily available for bare numeral quantifiers. (6.20)

a. Three lawyers hired a new secretary. b. At least three lawyers hired a new secretary.

(6.20a) easily allows for a reading where the lawyers hired one secretary together, whereas (6.20b) seems to only support a distributive reading, i.e. a reading where at least three lawyers each hired a new secretary. The difference in the availability of collective readings could also be the reason for the contrast in (6.18). In other words, it seems plausible that the plural anaphora reading is unavailable not because there is no plural variable that they can refer to, but because the matrix clause of (6.18b), which is (almost) equivalent to (6.20b), lacks a collective reading. Under the assumption that a distributive reading in the matrix-clause enforces a non-collective interpretation of the plural set anaphor (because the anaphor has to refer back to each individual lawyer in this case), it directly follows that (6.18b) only has a distributive-distributive reading: the plural pronoun of the relative clause can only be read as referring to each individual lawyer and not to the entire group of (at least) three lawyers. Note that this explanation would not work if the alleged third distributive-collective reading for (6.18a) could actually be verified, because in this case there would be no one to one-correspondence between distributive/collective readings in the matrix clause and singular/plural anaphoric possibilities in the relative clause. As long as there is no firm empirical evidence that the alleged third reading actually exists, I take the opposite view to Kamp and Reyle and take it that the disputed reading is not available for (6.18a). The question remaining is why the sentences in (6.19) allow for collective readings. The answer is rather straightforward: because the predicates are obligatorily collective and only allow for collective readings. The working hypothesis I want to put forth is the following: certain quantifiers (the non-wide scope ones) favor a distributive interpretation when possible; only when there is no other choice do they allow for a collective interpretation. This would explain the data in (6.19) as well as the contrasts in (6.18) and (6.20). (A variant of this hypothesis has also been brought up by (Kamp and Reyle, 1993, pp. 472, 481) themselves, who dismiss it at first and eventually more or less have to return to it when considering a broader range of data.) That we are on the right track with this working hypothesis can be evidenced by the fact that intrasentential set anaphoric readings are available for non-wide scope quantifiers

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if collective readings are enforced by the choice of the predicates involved. I will show this by way of the following German examples. (The observed facts remain the same for English). (6.21) Mehr als 100 Berliner Polizisten haben gestern ein Gebäude in more than 100 Berlinian policemen have

yesterday a

Kreuzberg gestürmt, das sie vorher umstellt Kreuzberg stormed

building in

hatten.

that they before surrounded had

‘Yesterday, more than 100 policemen from Berlin raided a building that they had surrounded beforehand.’ The sentence clearly has a reading in which the pronoun sie (they) from the relative clause refers to the collection of policemen that raided the building. Furthermore, the original secretary-example (6.18b), translated into German in (6.22a), can be modified such that it supports intrasentential plural-anaphora (see (6.22b)). (6.22)

a. Mindestens drei Rechtsanwälte haben eine Sekretärin eingestellt, at-least

die

three lawyers

have

a

secretary

hired

sie gut fanden.

whom they good found

‘At least three lawyers hired a secretary whom they liked.’ b. Mindestens drei Rechtsanwälte haben gemeinsam eine Sekretärin at-least

three lawyers

eingestellt, die hired

have

together

a

secretary

sie gut fanden.

whom they good found

‘At least three lawyers hired a secretary together whom they liked.’ The insertion of gemeinsam (together) in (6.22b) makes the collective and hence the plural-anaphora reading available, which is absent in (6.22a). We have seen that collective and intrasentential anaphora readings are sometimes possible even with modified numeral GQs. When a distributive interpretation is possible, collective readings are usually missing – probably because of the general preference of modified numeral GQs to support distributive readings. I conclude that the intrasentential anaphora facts cannot be used to argue in favor of a DRT treatment of anaphora and against the Kadmonian treatment. I will therefore hold fast to the assumption that all quantifiers introduce a set variable that can be picked up anaphorically at a later stage. On the other hand, the problems the DRT account has to face to account for the data in (6.19), (6.21), and (6.22) are much more severe than the problems an approach relying on a Kadmonian treatment of GQs has to face in order to explain the general tendency for distributive readings of non-wide scope quantifiers. While the Kadmonian approaches only have to explain the general preference for distributivity, the DRT account necessitates the assumption of an entirely different additional mechanism to account for the collectivity data, when a plural set variable is assumed to be generally absent, as has also been critically acknowledged by Kamp and Reyle themselves. There is still one problem that raises doubt about this line of argument: why is it that those GQs that Kamp and Reyle treat as ‘real’ GQs enforce distributive readings when possible, whereas the wide scope ones (that introduce a plural variable in Kamp and Reyle’s system) do not? I will try to give a tentative answer in the following. Let us

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 233 assume that all quantifiers (wide scope ones exemplified by three lawyers and non-wide scope ones exemplified by at least three lawyers alike) prefer to be read distributively, i.e. with verbs that can be read distributively they are read this way. Verbs that only have collective readings can only be read collectively and hence collective readings with these verbs are available with all kinds of GQs. Now, the difference between GQs such as three lawyers and GQs such as at least three lawyers arises because GQs of the first group can be sentence topics, as we have seen at many places so far, but GQs of the second group cannot. When a GQ is topical, it is read as the thematic subject, i.e. it introduces a plural set that is interpreted as the object of predication (as will be detailed below) and this might enforce a collective reading of the predicate. DPs in subject position are preferably interpreted as topics and so the sentences in (6.18a) or (6.20a) have a salient collective reading. The subject DPs in (6.18b) or (6.20b), on the other hand, denote GQs that cannot be interpreted as sentence topics – we will turn shortly to the question why this is so – and hence receive the usual GQ interpretation, which we have assumed favors a distributive reading. Let me finally review the general line of argument: all plural GQs introduce a set variable that can be used for collective and plural set anaphoric readings; collective predicates can only be interpreted collectively and hence collective readings arise with all kinds of GQs. Predicates which are ambiguous between a distributive and a collective reading prefer to be interpreted distributively and thus collective readings are not available with these predicates in the general case. However, topics are interpreted as thematic subjects and thereby enforce a collective reading of the predicate. Whenever a GQ can be interpreted as topical, the collective reading can thus come to the fore; this option is, of course, not open for GQs which are unable to be interpreted as sentence topics. In other words, there is a strong interaction between the availability of collective readings and a topical interpretation, i.e. a collective reading is enforced by a topical interpretation of the subject. Note that the construal of the quantifiers in (6.11) introduces a set variable, but still renders them as inherently distributive. For the derivation of collective readings the quantifiers would have to be construed differently to facilitate a proper composition with a collective predicate. The distributive readings could then come about by some kind of optional distribution (see Kamp and Reyle, 1993), but note that nevertheless an appropriate discourse referent has to be introduced in the lexical semantics of the quantifier as argued above. In the following, I will investigate the question why certain quantifiers cannot be topical. To keep things simple, this will be done on the basis of the distributive quantifier construal in (6.11). In Section A.1 of the appendix I show what a collective construal could look like and how the distributive semantics in (6.11) can be derived as a special case through explicit distribution.

6.2.2

Structured Meanings

Following Krifka (1992) and von Stechow (1989) (whose systems rely on an idea of Dahl, 1974), I make use of structured meanings. But while these authors are mainly concerned with the focus-background structure of propositions, I employ structured meanings to represent the topic-comment structure. Let me outline the most relevant

234


features of the structured meaning approaches here. Resembling the treatment of focus in Krifka (1992), the representation of an expression containing a topic-marked constituent is structured into a topic component αT (representing the semantics of the topic-marked constituent) and a comment component αC such that the entire representation is of the form hαT , αC i. The conventional meaning of the expression can be derived by applying the comment αC to the topic αT . The following definition of functional application with structured meanings is taken from Krifka (1992): 1. hαT , αC i(β)

= hαT , λX.[αC (X)(β)]i, where X is of the same type as αT

β(hαT , αC i)

= hαT , λX.[β(αC (X))]i, where X is of the same type as αT

2.

This definition ensures that the information about topic-marked sub-constituents is inherited by larger constituents while functional application is carried out. For perspicuity, assume the following simple grammar. (6.23)

S

→

NP VP JSK = JNP K(JVP K)

S

→

IF S1 THEN S2 JSK = λpλq.(p → q)(JS1 K)(JS2 K)

NP

→

Det N JNP K = JDetK(JN K)

[C]T

→

C J[C]T K = hJCK, λX.Xi where X is of the same type as JCK

The last rule states that topic-marked phrases are translated as topic-comment structures. Let me illustrate the interplay of structured meanings, the grammar, and the generalized quantifier semantics in (6.11) with two simple examples: (6.24)

[ Three horses ]T

sleep

hλQ.∃X.|X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q, λRhhe,ti,ti .Ri

sleep

hλQ.∃X.|X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q, λR.R(sleep)i As mentioned above, the conventional meaning of this sentence can be derived by applying the comment component to the topic component: (6.25) λR.R(sleep) λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ]

≡ ∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ sleep ]

Consider also the following example. (6.26) if [ three horses ]T

sleep

IF hλQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ], λR.Ri sleep

then

φ

THEN φ

hλQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ], λR.R(sleep)i hλQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ], λR(R(sleep) → φ)i

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 235 The sentence as such (i.e. if we ignore the topic-marking) is ambiguous between a wide scope and a narrow scope reading for the indefinite three horses. Again, one could apply the comment component to the topic component and this would yield one of its meanings, namely the narrow scope one: (6.27) λR[R(sleep) → φ] λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ] ≡ (∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ sleep ]) → φ

However, I will argue that the sentence cannot receive this reading when the GQ three horses is marked as topical. We will see that the interpretation the sentence actually receives is a wide scope reading for the indefinite. This reading cannot be derived via application of the comment part to the topical part, but will be derived by the topic interpretation mechanism to be explained below.

6.3 Components of the Theory The topical status of the quantifier under consideration is responsible for its wide scope interpretation. The underlying idea here is very close to the justification of referential readings in Fodor and Sag, 1982, although I explicitly argue against a referential treatment of topical indefinites. Fodor and Sag (1982) p. 380, argue that a referential indefinite is used to make an assertion about the individual the speaker has in mind. In the approach I develop a wide scope reading comes about as a result of interpreting the indefinite as the direct aboutness topic of the corresponding sentence. I adopt the aboutness view of topicality of Reinhart (1981) (cf. Chapter 2). A topic is understood to be the address for the context update, which (sloppily speaking) points to a place where the information conveyed by the sentence will be stored during the context update. Many items – in particular most quantifiers – do not provide sensible addresses. And this is why they cannot serve as sentence topics. The other concept relating to topics that I have also discussed in Chapter 2 is familiarity. If a topic is familiar, it has been previously introduced. In more formal terms, this means that a discourse referent for this topic already exists in the common ground, which in turn means that the information conveyed by the sentence can straightforwardly be added to the common ground, because it can be ‘stored’ under the ‘address’ of this discourse referent. In this case, the common ground can be updated with the conventional meaning αC (αT ). By this definition, only individuals (and sets) can be familiar, as only for them might discourse referents already exist in the common ground. In particular, quantifiers (and other expressions of non-individual and nonset type) cannot be familiar as such, because quantifiers of type hhe, ti, ti cannot be picked up by anaphoric expressions (although they can introduce discourse referents themselves). However, I have shown in Section 2.2 that certain quantifiers can still function as the aboutness topic of a sentence. The relevant class was indicated again in (6.1). As there is no link (i.e. discourse referent) available for the context update in case the topical item is a quantifier, I assume that a suitable address/link has to be created.

236


In other words, a sensible representative of the entire quantifier has to be found that stands proxy for the quantifier itself and at the same time delivers an address for the information structuring of the context update. This comes down to the creation of a sensible discourse referent. This is the decisive criterion for separating the topical quantifiers from other quantifiers: while the former allow for the creation of a sensible discourse referent, the latter fail to do so. Here, I will formally spell out these ideas and intuitions. First, I will define what it means (for a quantifier) to provide a suitable address/discourse referent, which will lead to a condition on the lexical semantics of quantifiers. This Topic Condition will serve to separate the class of topicable/wide scope quantifiers from its complement class. Finally I will show how a topical interpretation updates the common ground.

6.3.1 Creating a Topic Discourse Referent In the following I will go into the details of the interpretation procedure for topical quantifiers. What does it mean then for a quantifier to serve as sentence topic? Let us assume that we have to deal with a topic-marked quantifier such as the one in example (6.26), i.e. with a quantifier that ends up as the topic component αT of the sentence under consideration. This quantifier cannot be familiar, of course, because indefinites and quantifiers in general always introduce something new. Furthermore, it does not per se provide a sensible ‘address’ for the context update. Hence, an address has to be created. What we must do: (6.28)

1. take a sensible representative for the quantifier, then 2. create a discourse referent P for this representative, and finally 3. let this discourse referent function as topic in place of the quantifier αT itself.

Formalizing these steps we arrive at the following schema: (6.29)

∃P [ P is a representative for αT ∧ αC (F(P )) ]

Here the phrase P is a representative for αT is used to describe operation 1 of (6.28). The (dynamic) existential binding of P corresponds to 2, the creation of a discourse referent for P . Finally 3 is implemented by applying αC to (a function F of) P instead of αT , which would yield the conventional meaning. What then would be a good candidate to represent the entire quantifier αT ? Obviously, a good representative would be an element of the quantifier which does not contain any ‘disturbing’ elements. A minimal witness set in the sense of Barwise and Cooper (1981) is a set that meets this requirement. For every set P and generalized quantifier G a predicate MW is defined such that MW (P, G) is true, iff P is a minimal witness set19 of G: (6.30)

MW (P, G) = G(P ) ∧ ∀Q[(G(Q) ∧ P 6= Q) → ¬(Q ⊆ P )]

Accordingly, MW (G) is the set of minimal witness sets of G. 19 I actually define only minimal sets here, but it can be shown that for every quantifier minimal sets and minimal witness sets coincide (Ebert, 2002). See Section A.1 of the appendix for the original definitions of (minimal) witness sets.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 237 Now we can formalize point 2 and 3 and replace the phrase P is a representative for αT in (6.29) by the statement MW (P, αT ), saying that P is a minimal (witness) set of αT . We then apply the comment to (a function of) the representative P : (6.31)

∃P [MW (P, αT ) ∧ αC (F(P ))]

This formula describes exactly what happens when a quantifier serves as the aboutness topic of a sentence. Hence, it formalizes the intuition behind what one can understand as unfamiliar aboutness topics. As αC is necessarily of a type that can be applied to αT , there would be a type conflict if αC was directly applied to the set P ∈ αT . It has to be applied to something of type hhe, ti, ti and not of type he, ti. Hence, it is applied to a derived argument F(P ). What F does depends on the kind of argument it is applied to, which in turn depends on the verb that is involved. In case it is a distributive verb, F (which can be viewed as a kind of type-shifter) looks as follows: (6.32) Type Shift – Distributive Readings: F(Phe,ti ) λQhe,ti .P ⊆ Q Note that this type shift corresponds to inherent distribution of P over Q, which will basically distribute P over the predicate in αC (such as sleep), to which the quantifier αT applies. In case the main predicate is a collective verb such as meet as in Three horses met, F would correspond to a type shift that parallels Partee’s (1987) lift-operator. (6.33) FColl (P )

λQ.Q(P )

In fact, however, if the involved predicate is a collective one, the involved quantifier needs to be a collective one also from the start. The minimal witness set of such a collective quantifier would be of type hhe, ti, ti (in this case: a singleton set P containing a set P of individuals, i.e. P = {P }), which would then have to be lifted to type hhhe, ti, ti, ti. So the type shift actually remains exactly as in (6.32) except that it applies to entities of higher type (see the Appendix Section A.1.3 for details on collective quantifier semantics and the derivation of collective readings): (6.34) Type Shift – Collective Readings: F(Phhe,ti,ti ) λQhhe,ti,ti .P ⊆ Q Given that P = {P }, this is equivalent to: (6.35) F({P })

λQ.Q(P )

Hence there are only two kinds of type shifts (= instantiations of F), one for arguments of type he, ti and one for arguments of type hhe, ti, ti. Note that this assumption prevents the approach from overgeneration. An inherently distributive quantifier such as every horse does not have a collective quantifier semantics from the start and hence cannot combine with a collective predicate such as meet. This approach then correctly predicts that there are no derivations for sentences such as ∗ Every horse met. The procedure I propose for the interpretation of topical quantifiers is similar in certain respects to what Szabolcsi (1997b) proposes for the interpretation of a DP in Topicposition. But while her mechanism comes without further justification, the approach

238


just presented can be seen to yield the motivation behind Szabolcsi’s proposal for the interpretation of QPs in Topic-position.

6.3.2 The Topic Condition Now that the creation of a discourse referent from a quantifier has been defined (cf. 6.31), we can define a formal test that decides whether a quantifier can serve as sentence topic or not. We therefore formulate a condition which operates on the semantics of a quantifier. This condition is called the Topic Condition, because it determines whether a quantifier can function as an aboutness topic or not. To test the ability of a quantifier to serve as an aboutness topic, one compares the aboutness case ∃P [MW (P, αT ) ∧ αC (F(P ))] (i.e. the case where a discourse referent has to be created) to the standard semantics αC (αT ) the sentence would have disregarding information structure. This comparison is conducted only with respect to certain simple comments. It is checked whether the aboutness topic operation, when applied, would yield a sensible result. The intuition behind the test is that the aboutness function of a topic should not change the semantics of the topic-embedding sentence. The ‘aboutness update’ of a sentence should differ only minimally from the usual update, i.e. only in the creation of an additional address/link/discourse referent, which serves to store the information of the sentence. Everything else should be maintained as is. In particular, the information that the speaker intends to convey should not be modified by making the GQ the sentence’s topic. For simple comments, the two cases should not differ at all concerning truth conditions, and they should only differ in a non-destructive way as far as the anaphoric potential is concerned. The only way in which the two versions may differ is in the introduction of a new discourse referent for the topical quantifier. Definition 6.1 (Topic Condition) A quantifier G fulfills the Topic Condition if for all sets Y 1. ∃P [MW (P, G) ∧ (λR.R(Y )) (F(P ))]

≡

(λR.R(Y )) (G)

and

2. 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 ))]. Here, λR.R(Y ) takes the place of αC and is what I regard as a simple comment. In particular, ‘simple’ means that it does not contain any scope operators. When such operators are present, we indeed expect that the truth conditions differ – after all, this will eventually account for the observed wide scope behavior of topical indefinites. But in the simple cases without such operators, the only difference should lie in the possible introduction of an additional storage address for the discourse update.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 239 According to this definition, a quantifier G fulfills the Topic Condition if for certain general simple cases 1. the creation of the discourse referent has no truth-conditional effect w.r.t. a standard context update, and 2., dynamically speaking, the introduction of a new discourse referent does not destroy already existing anaphoric possibilities, but only adds a new possible topic that can be referred to in subsequent discourse. Note that the Topic Condition is a condition on the lexical semantics of a quantifier and checks the general ability of a quantifier to function as an aboutness topic. It is thus independent of the actual configuration the quantifier appears in.

6.3.3

Quantifier Classification

In the following I will show that the Topic Condition is capable of deriving the correct classification of quantifiers into topicable/wide scope quantifiers and their complement class. For ease of exposition, I will assume that we deal with distributive verbs/readings and that hence F is spelled out as the type shift in (6.32). Monotone decreasing and non-monotonic quantifiers Monotone decreasing and non-monotonic quantifiers do not pass point (1.) of the Topic Condition. Suppose that G is a monotone decreasing or non-monotonic quantifier. After application of the type shift (6.32) we arrive at the equivalence (6.36)

∃P [MW (P, G) ∧ P ⊆ Y ]

≡

G(Y ),

which does not hold for all sets Y . For instance, taking at most three horses as an example of a monotone decreasing quantifier G, (6.36) reduces to (6.37)

∃P [P = ∅ ∧ P ⊆ Y ]

6≡

∃X[ |X| ≤ 3 ∧ X = horse ∩ Y ]

Here it is obvious that the equivalence does not hold: the left hand side is tautological whereas the right hand side is the (non-tautological) semantics of at most three horses do Y. The general problem for monotone decreasing quantifiers is that their (unique) minimal witness set is the empty set, which cannot serve as a proper representative for the quantifier. Taking a non-monotonic quantifier such as exactly three horses as an example yields similar results. (6.38)

∃P [P ⊆ horse ∧ |P | = 3 ∧ P ⊆ Y ] 6≡ ∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X = horse ∩ Y ]

If there is a set of three horses that do Y (which is what the lefthand side formula says), this does not mean that exactly three horses do Y (which is what the righthand side formula says). In the first case, there might be more than three horses doing Y , but in the second case this possibility is excluded. This fact about non-increasing quantifiers follows directly from findings in Barwise and Cooper (1981), where it was shown that only for monotone increasing quantifiers

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does the assumed procedure of existential quantification over a minimal witness set fail to have a truth-conditional effect. The above-mentioned increasingness constraint of Szabolcsi (1997b) aims at an explanation along the same lines.

Increasing quantifiers As just mentioned, monotone increasing quantifiers pass point 1. of the Topic Condition. However, point 2. is only passed by non-exhaustive quantifiers (cf. Section 6.2.1). Therefore exhaustive quantifiers such as at least three horses fail point 2, because it does not hold for all Y that (6.39)

c + ∃P [ |P | = 3 ∧ P ⊆ horse ∧ P ⊆ Y ]

has all of the anaphoric possibilities of (6.40)

c + ∃X[ |X| ≥ 3 ∧ X = horse ∩ Y ].

The standard quantifier semantics shown in (6.40) allows X to refer to sets of cardinality greater than three (cf. (6.17)), which due to the dynamic interpretation of the existential quantifier can be picked up anaphorically in subsequent discourse. Introduction of a topic discourse referent in (6.39) eliminates these anaphoric possibilities. P can only refer to a minimal witness set, which contains exactly three horses. In this respect, the introduction of a new topic would be destructive and thus at least three horses fails the Topic Condition. On the other hand, three horses as a non-exhaustive quantifier passes the Topic Condition because the lexical semantics only allows for reference to sets of three horses, which are just the minimal witness sets of the quantifier. For all Y it holds that (6.41)

c + ∃P [ |P | = 3 ∧ P ⊆ horse ∧ P ⊆ Y ]


c + ∃X[|X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Y ].

Both the existentially bound P and X allow for anaphoric reference to exactly the same sets of three horses. Thus the Topic Condition rules out monotone decreasing, non-monotonic, and monotone increasing exhaustive quantifiers. These quantifiers cannot be interpreted as topical quantifiers and therefore the Topic Condition yields the desired classification: Topic Condition failed/non-topicable

Topic Condition passed/topicable

at most n exactly n at least n few fewer than n ...

n a, some every all several (?)

It might be surprising that the strong quantifiers every and all are both classified as topical quantifiers by the Topic Condition, but it can easily be verified that they

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 241 pass the Topic Condition. A universal quantifier is, of course, (right) monotone increasing and could hence only fail the Topic Condition by not passing the second requirement, which is that the existential quantification over the minimal witness set destroys anaphoric possibilities. In the case of every N, the quantifier does not introduce an existentially quantified plural discourse referent (cf. (6.12)). So here, an additional plural discourse referent is created in the aboutness case (which is not prohibited). In the case of all N, the corresponding GQ introduces a plural set variable itself like all other plural quantifiers do, namely one that corresponds to the entire intersection of restrictor and nucleus, which is equal to the restrictor set itself. As a universal quantifier has a unique minimal witness set which corresponds to the entire restrictor set, existential quantification over this set in the aboutness case also yields a plural set variable for the restrictor set. Hence, no anaphoric possibilities are lost. Now, for all N, we have seen that it is often well suited in topic position; every N, however, is not. The different behavior could be due to the fact that sentences with topical every-GQs are often unacceptable due to conflicting number agreement constraints. For example in the German left dislocation constructions, the resumptive pronoun would have to be plural because a plural set variable is created in the aboutness case, whereas it would have to be singular considering the morphological marking of the DP itself. These conflicting demands might be the reason why every-phrases are unacceptable in left-dislocated position (cf. Section 2.2). A further potential problem might be that neither every N nor all N are usually considered to be wide scope quantifiers. But if they are classified as topicable, this predicts that they give rise to exceptional wide scope readings. Although this consequence might be surprising at first, we will see below that the account presented makes the correct predictions concerning these quantifiers nevertheless. Concerning several N, the quantifier is predicted to be topicable if it receives a nonexhaustive semantics. In other words, if several N can receive an exceptional wide scope reading for one speaker, the same speaker should also be able to interpret it non-exhaustively. The discourse in (6.13) (repeated below as (6.44)) should thus be coherent for those speakers who allow for exceptional wide scope readings of several N.20 20 As mentioned above, some speakers judge (6.44) as a coherent discourse and others refuse it. I could not always elicit whether the same speakers that accepted it also allow for exceptional wide scope readings of several N and whether those that refused it disallow such readings. More empirical work is needed here. However, I am quite sure that the correlation is existent in German: einige N (several N) allows for exceptional wide scope and is interpreted non-exhaustively.

(6.43)

a. Gestern auf der Party waren einige Mathematiker. Sie haben die ganze Nacht yesterday at the party were several mathematicians they have the whole night getanzt. danced ‘Several mathematicians were at the party yesterday. They danced all night.’ b. Die anderen Mathematiker auf der Party haben nur viel getrunken. the other mathematicians at the party have only much drunk ‘The other mathematicians at the party only drank a lot.’

242


(6.44)

a. Several mathematicians were at the party yesterday. They danced all night. b. The other mathematicians at the party only drank a lot.

As a non-exhaustive quantifier, several N receives the semantics in (6.12) above, repeated below.21 (6.46) several λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ], where n is context dependent. Given this semantics, it is easy to verify that several N passes the Topic Condition. After all it receives the semantics of the bare numeral n N, for contextual n. As it is a monotone increasing quantifier it passes point (1) of the Topic Condition. For point (2), it holds that for all Y (6.47)

c + ∃P [ |P | = n ∧ P ⊆ mathematician ∧ P ⊆ Y ]


c + ∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ mathematician ∩ Y ],

where n is context dependent. several N denotes a GQ that consists of sets that are N and have at least n elements. A minimal witness set of this GQ is a subset of N with n elements. As the GQ is non-exhaustive, it allows anaphoric reference only to subsets of N with exactly n elements, which are the minimal witness sets of the GQ at the same time. Hence, no anaphoric potential is lost in the aboutness case, where a minimal witness set of the GQ is picked out and anaphoric reference to this set is made possible. Generally speaking, all monotone increasing non-exhaustive quantifiers are predicted to be topicable. So I predict a direct interdependence of non-exhaustivity and topicability. If a monotone increasing quantifier is interpreted non-exhaustively, it should also be interpretable as sentence topic. Concerning the quantifier many N, matters are not quite clear, as indicated in Chapter 2 already. In English, many N is sometimes regarded as a wide scope quantifier (see e.g. Reinhart, 1997). Furthermore, de Swart (2001) argues that it is also a non-exhaustive GQ (one that allows for non-maximal discourse anaphora in her terminology). The German data are controversial, as also pointed out in Chapter 2. I have to leave the exact analysis of many N and its classification into topicable or non-topicable unsettled. However, let me point out that I predict that if it turns out that many N allows for non-exhaustive anaphoric readings, it should also be possible to interpret the GQ as a wide scope quantifier. The choice of the minimal witness set of a GQ as a representative for the entire quantifier might appear arbitrary at first sight. However, the fact that this choice delivers the correct classification for topicable vs. non-topicable quantifiers is an argument in favor of this treatment of quantificational topics. Furthermore, operating solely on the 21 For those speakers who interpret the quantifier exhaustively, the semantics would have to look as follows:

(6.45) several λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ], where n is context dependent.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 243 lexical semantics of the GQ as proposed here, there is no better choice that one could make. For non-exhaustive quantifiers, among which we find the monotone decreasing ones such as at most ten N, it is impossible to determine a felicitous representative just on the basis of the lexical semantics of the quantifier. We have seen that the minimal witness set is not a good choice. But what would be a good choice? Without evaluation of the follow-up context it can actually not be decided what would be a good representative for a quantifier like this. (6.49) There were at most ten mathematicians at the party yesterday. They danced all night. In the case where eight mathematicians came to the party, the utterance is understood to say that eight mathematicians came to the party and that these eight mathematicians also danced. Here, a good representative for the quantifier would be a set of eight mathematicians (that came to the party). But in a different situation, when six mathematicians came, the set of eight mathematicians would be a poor representative, whereas a set of six mathematicians would be a good one. In fact, we do not know how small a set we would have to choose as a representative and hence there is no reasonable representative that can be picked out just by investigating the lexical semantics of the GQ. A good choice depends entirely on the specific situation that makes the respective sentence true. Independent of context, we cannot find a suitable representative for the GQ. This is different in the case of non-exhaustive quantifiers. In the case of the GQ ten mathematicians, a set of ten mathematicians is a good representative for the entire GQ in all situations. This is entirely independent of the concrete situation that happens to make the sentence true. A set of ten mathematicians is always a perfect representative of the GQ, precisely because we are dealing with a non-exhaustive quantifier in this case, which only allows for anaphoric reference to a minimal witness set of the GQ anyway. A set of ten mathematicians, i.e. a minimal witness set of the GQ, represents the GQ perfectly well. Even for non-exhaustive vague quantifiers such as several N, a good representative can be found via evaluation of the lexical semantics of the GQ, as long as it has already been decided what counts as being ‘several’. If one knows what the contextual number n has to be instantiated with (cf. the lexical semantics of several in (6.46)), all sets of n N are perfect representatives of the GQ, independent of the concrete use of the GQ and the situation that makes the sentence true. In other words, the follow-up context is of no interest for the choice of the representative, because the quantifier is non-exhaustive. A sensible representative can be chosen at the moment the GQ is used. This is the crucial difference between non-exhaustive quantifiers such as three N and even vague ones such as several N on the one side and exhaustive ones such as at most n N, few N or more than n N on the other. No suitable representative for the GQ can be found by relying on the lexical semantics alone or without consideration of the concrete utterance context in the latter case. Therefore a minimal witness set seems to be the only reasonable choice for a set that represents a quantifier in general. Furthermore, the fact that we choose a minimal witness set can be motivated pragmatically. For a GQ such as three horses one does not choose a witness set of four horses because

244


this would also be a witness for the GQ four horses. Grice’s maxim of quantity then dictates to take a minimal witness set as a certain GQ’s representative. Let us now turn to GQs such as most horses, which do not seem to pass the Topic Condition. However, we have seen that the German quantifier die meisten N (most N) and its equivalents in Japanese, Korean, and Hungarian can actually appear in topic position (cf. the findings in Section 2.2). It almost goes without saying that die meisten N and most N have to be analyzed as exhaustive. (6.50)

a. Most of Maria’s friends came to Peter’s party. b. They all brought a bottle of wine. c. Die meisten von Marias Freunden waren gestern auf Peters Party. the most

of

Maria’s friends

were

yesterday at Peter’s party

‘Most of Maria’s friends came to Peter’s party.’ d. Sie haben alle eine Flasche Wein mitgebracht. they have

all a

bottle

wine brought-along

‘They all brought a bottle of wine.’ The pronouns they in (6.50b) and sie in (6.50d) can only refer back to the entire group of friends of Maria who came to Peter’s party, which means that the respective GQs need to be analyzed as exhaustive. If Mary has ten friends and seven of them came to the party, (6.50b) as well as the German equivalent in (6.50d) can only be understood as saying that all seven brought a bottle of wine. Hence, die meisten N and most N receive the GQ semantics in (6.12), repeated below. (6.51) λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ 12 |P | ∧ X = P ∩ Q ] Given this semantics, (6.50a) and (6.50c) are true if more than half of Maria’s friends came to Peter’s party. One can easily see that – with the semantics given in (6.51) – die meisten N /most N do not pass point (2.) of the Topic Condition, just like more than three N does not pass it. It should hence be classified as non-topicable. Yet, we have observed most-DPs with topic-markings quite frequently. But note that there is a minimally different variant of the quantifier most N in English, namely the most N, which has a superlative reading. (6.52) The person who finds the most Easter eggs in the allotted time wins. (6.52) says that the person who finds the biggest amount of Easter eggs wins. If there are more than two competitors, the person that wins does not have to find more than 50 percent of the overall amount of Easter eggs. It suffices if she finds more eggs than anybody else. In fact, other languages also lexically distinguish between quantifiers such as the most N and those corresponding to more than half of N, e.g. Hungarian. While we observe GQs of the first kind marked as topics, we never see any of the second kind as overtly topic-marked (cf. Szabolcsi, 1997b for Hungarian). English most N and German die meisten N (most N) seem to be ambiguous between the more than half of -reading and the superlative reading. And this might be the clue to an explanation for why we actually do find most-DPs as topic-marked so frequently. (6.51) actually represents the semantics for more than half of N and for most in its more than half of -meaning.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 245 However, most N does not only have the more than half -meaning, but also the superlative reading.22 (6.53)

a. In the last election, most Germans voted for the SPD. b. At the party, most boys were wearing RED trousers.

(6.53a) (with stress on SPD ) has one salient reading saying that among the Germans the largest group voted for the SPD. This might well be a group of less than 50%, as long as there is no larger group of people who voted for some other party, say for CDU or the Green Party. (6.53b) is understood in the following way: there were more boys at the party wearing red trousers than there were boys wearing green and yellow or othercoloured trousers. It is suggestive that only in this superlative reading and not in the quantifier more than half of -meaning appear most-DPs as topics. The Topic Condition would bar most-DPs in the more than half of -meaning from a topical interpretation, but certainly not those in the superlative reading, considering their resemblance to definite descriptions. More work is needed here to be able to work out the correct analysis of superlative most. But hopefully accomplishing this task will also yield an answer to the question why we find most-DPs as topics so frequently at the same time.23

6.3.4

Topic Assert

The context update is performed by way of an illocutionary operator TopAssert (Topic Assert), which applies to a common ground c and a structured meaning representation hαT , αC i of a sentence. It performs the update of the common ground by taking the status of the topic-marked constituent αT into consideration. This update is (preliminarily) defined as follows, but will be refined later on24 : Definition 6.2 (Topic Assert – preliminary) TopAssert(hαT , αC i)(c)  if αT is accessible in c  c + αC (αT ) c + ∃P [MW (P, αT ) ∧ αC (F(P ))] if αT fulfills the Topic Condition =  undefined else 22 My

English informants were not entirely consistent at this point. Most of them allowed for the superlative reading with most (instead of the most ) in (6.53a,b), but there were some for whom (6.53a,b) support only the more than half -reading. However, all informants agreed that substituting most by the most is impossible in example (6.53) and would result in infelicitous or at least very degraded sentences. 23 Manfred Krifka (p.c.) proposes an entirely different route to take. He suggests classifying most N as topicable due to its property to act like a generic operator. One can assume that a sentence such as Most snakes are venomous is not interpreted as a sentence about most serpents, but about serpents in general, where the general assertion is weakened by most. In other words, most N could only be topic-marked because in fact the restrictor set N is topical and most operates on this set. It is, however, not entirely clear why such a strategy should not work for other quantifiers, as well. This assumption would then make the wrong prediction that all kinds of quantifiers (with topical restrictors) can be syntactically or morphologically marked as topics. This is not what one observes. 24 P is a new discourse referent.

246


The first case of Definition 6.2 deals with familiar topics and corresponds directly to Reinhart’s (1981) familiarity case as discussed in Section 2.1.5: if the discourse referent for αT is already accessible in the common ground, then an update with the conventional meaning αC (αT ) is carried out. The second case reminds us of Reinhart’s (1981) new topic case (cf. also Cresti, 1995; Yeom, 1998; Portner and Yabushita, 2001, where it is suggested that specific indefinites presuppose their existence and that these presuppositions update the common ground first). But whereas Reinhart (1981) can only postulate that new topics have to create new entries for information storage, the second case formalizes what it means for a quantifier to be an aboutness topic: if the topic-marked expression αT passes the Topic Condition, a new discourse referent is created (as explained above) and the appropriate update is performed. Thus the application of TopAssert is only defined if the topic-marked constituent is either familiar or fulfills the Topic Condition. By this definition only constituents that pass the Topic Condition can be unfamiliar aboutness topics in this sense. As can be seen, the update in the aboutness case leads to a wide scope reading of the respective quantifier. This will be illustrated in detail in the following section.

6.4 Deriving Wide Scope via Topicality To illustrate the proposal let me start with a simple example. (6.54) [ Three horses ]T sleep. The application of the illocutionary operator TopAssert to the structured meaning representation and to some common ground c yields the following update. TopAssert(hλQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ], λR.R(sleep)i)(c) h = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ])

i ∧ λR.R(sleep)(F(P ))

h = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ])

i ∧ λR.R(sleep)(λQ.P ⊆ Q)

h i = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ]) ∧ P ⊆ sleep In this example, three horses is the sentence topic. Being a quantifier, three horses cannot already have been established, i.e. cannot be accessible in the common ground. For this reason, the first case of Definition 6.2 is not applicable. Therefore, the second case comes into play, because three horses is a non-exhaustive, increasing quantifier which passes the Topic Condition. Thus, a new discourse referent P which refers to a set of three horses is established and the respective update is performed. Due to the involved distributive verb sleep, F corresponds to the distributive type shift illustrated in (6.32). In this case, the aboutness case is equivalent to the standard semantics the sentence would have had if three horses had not been topical.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 247 To see how exceptional wide scope readings can be derived, consider example (6.26) again, repeated as (6.55). (6.55) if [ three horses ]T sleep then φ. The structured meaning representation of this example has been derived in (6.26). The application of TopAssert yields the following result: TopAssert(hλQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ], λR.(R(sleep) → φ)i)(c) h = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ])

i ∧ λR.(R(sleep) → φ)(F(P ))

h = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ])

i ∧ λR.(R(sleep) → φ)(λQ.P ⊆ Q)

h i = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∃X[ |X| = 3 ∧ X ⊆ horse ∩ Q ]) ∧ (P ⊆ sleep → φ) Here the reasoning is analogous to the above example (6.54). However, due to the structure of the sentence, an interpretation is generated in which three horses takes wide scope over the if -clause. The formula the context is updated with can be paraphrased as: there is a minimal witness set P of three horses (i.e. a set containing exactly three horses) and if each of the elements in P sleeps, then φ. This is the desired wide scope reading, where distributivity stays local. As mentioned above, the universal quantifiers every and all pass the Topic Condition by definition. Therefore, in a case like (6.56) if [ every horse ]T sleeps then φ. the second (aboutness) case of Definition 6.2 is applicable25 just as in the case of (6.55). The result of the application of TopAssert is as follows: (6.57) TopAssert(hλQ.∀x[horse(x) → Q(x)], λR.(R(sleep) → φ)i)(c) h = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∀x[horse(x) → Q(x)])

i ∧ λR.(R(sleep) → φ)(F(P ))

h i = c + ∃P MW (P, λQ.∀x[horse(x) → Q(x)]) ∧ (P ⊆ sleep → φ) The unique minimal witness set of the quantifier every horse is the set of horses. This then yields the following result: (6.58) c + ∃P [P = horse ∧ P ⊆ sleeps → φ] 25 Note that Beghelli and Stowell (1997) as well as Szabolcsi (1997b) come to a related conclusion, namely that universal quantifiers can be interpreted in DistP where they pick a witness set from the quantifier. I differ from these approaches in that under my proposal these quantifiers always introduce a minimal witness set and never just any witness set, which then also holds in the case of universal quantifiers. Both views yield the same result here, because the minimal witness set and the witness set of a universal coincide – in both cases it is the restrictor set itself.

248


Obviously, this formula represents the narrow scope interpretation of the sentence – the only difference being that there is an existential quantifier over a plural variable P , which has been introduced for future reference. Hence, in static semantic terms, the formula is equivalent to the usual narrow scope reading of the sentence, which is (6.59) c + horse ⊆ sleeps → φ. In dynamic semantics, however, there is a difference between the two formulas, because in the former case an additional variable for future anaphoric reference is introduced. And indeed, one can observe plural set anaphoric reference in subsequent discourse to every-GQs (cf. Kamp and Reyle, 1993). (6.60)

a. Every horse is sleeping right now. They have been so tired all day. b. If every horse sleeps, Maria will get to sleep herself. But they normally don’t fall asleep so early.

If every horse is interpreted as topical in (6.60), intersentential plural anaphoric reference to the set of horses is possible, because the existential quantifier is externally dynamic. This is exactly what we observe (cf. especially example (6.60b)). In other words, every horse can be topic-marked, but because of the equivalence of the wide scope and the narrow scope reading in static semantics, it only seems as if there was no wide scope reading. In an ill-formed case of topic-marking such as (6.61) If ∗ [ at most three horses ]T sleep then φ. the reasoning is as follows. Again at most three horses as a quantifier cannot be familiar as such and thus the first case of Definition 6.2 is not applicable. But in this case the second (aboutness) case is not applicable either, because at most three horses does not pass the Topic Condition (as explained above). Therefore only the third case remains and the result of any potential update is undefined. This explains why at most three horses cannot function as topic, i.e. cannot be topic-marked and in turn cannot receive an exceptional wide scope interpretation. Let us finally turn to most-DPs. We have seen above that most-GQs can be marked as topical, but, as I assume, only in their superlative reading. On the other hand, it is quite clear that most-GQs usually do not allow for exceptional wide scope in their more than half of -reading. This would be predicted, because, as shown above, they do not pass the Topic Condition in this reading. The following example illustrates this point. (6.62) If most friends of Peter’s come to the party, Maria will join the party, as well. The sentence does not have a reading that there is a specific group of Peter’s friends (comprising more than half of them) and if they turn up, Maria will join the party, i.e. that she will only join the party if a specific group of Peter’s friends come to the party. In fact, the sentence only supports a narrow scope reading for the quantifier in this reading as is expected if most N in the more than half of -reading cannot be interpreted as topical. There is one counterexample that I am aware of.26 26 The

example was presented to me by Kai von Fintel (p.c.), who stumbled over it in a commercial.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 249 (6.63) When most companies design a new car, they don’t pay attention to their customers. But we do. The sentence has a distributive(!) exceptional wide scope reading saying that for most companies it holds that when one of them designs a car, this company does not pay attention to its customers. Unfortunately, I must leave the issue of how to correctly handle most-GQs unsettled.27

6.5 Intermediate Scope Readings 6.5.1

Data

Section 4.4.1 has shown that certain quantifiers can not only scope out of syntactic islands and take widest scope. They also take intermediate scope, i.e. they take exceptional wide scope out of syntactic islands and yet take narrower scope than other operators at the same time. I repeat example (4.29b) from Chapter 4 in (6.64). (6.64) Jeder Student hat angekündigt, die Party zu verlassen, wenn ↑EIN Dozent every student has announced,

the party to leave,

if

some lecturer

auftaucht. shows-up.

‘Every student announced that he will leave the party if some lecturer shows up.’ As pointed out before, the sentence has an intermediate scope reading in which ein Dozent (some lecturer) takes exceptional scope out of the if -clause, but narrower scope than jeder Student (every student). The reading says that for every student there exists some specific lecturer such that the student would leave the party immediately if the lecturer he picked turns up. (6.64) could be continued by (6.65). (6.65) A geht, wenn Dozent A’ erscheint; B, wenn B’ erscheint, ... A goes if

lecturer A’ appears

B if

B’ appears

In my approach, the intermediate scope reading comes about as a result of the interpretation of embedded topic-comment structures (cf. Krifka, 2001b, where it is also assumed that speech acts, i.e. topic-comment structures, can be nested). In the case of example (6.64), it is the verb ankündigen (to announce) that can be applied to a topic-comment structure. That this verb plays a crucial role here is evidenced by the fact that it is much harder, if not impossible, to get an intermediate scope reading for sentence (6.66), which is very similar to (6.64) but does not contain a verb that can be regarded as embedding its own topic-comment structure. (6.66) Jeder Student verlässt die Party sofort, Every student leaves

wenn ↑EIN Dozent auftaucht.

the party immediately, if


‘Every student will leave the party immediately if some lecturer shows up.’ 27 There are further examples of (alleged) wide scope distributive readings of most -DPs in (Abusch, 1994, e.g. ex. (44), p. 118). Translated into German the sentences outlined there do not provide examples of wide scope distributive readings. More empirical work would be needed to come to a decisive conclusion here.

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The sentence seems to have only one reading, namely an exceptional wide scope reading. The narrow scope reading is not expected, due to the accent on the determiner ein (some). However, it is not obvious why an intermediate scope reading, which is available for (6.64), should be missing. I will argue that it is missing because there is no topic-comment structure embedding operator in (6.66).28 Note that Reinhart (1997) and Winter (1997) argue that when intermediate scope readings are missing this is for pragmatic reasons. However, if there was a pragmatic reason that could be held responsible for the missing intermediate scope reading in (6.66), it is mysterious why this same reasoning should not apply in the case of (6.64). The prediction my approach makes is straightforward: whenever there is a topiccomment embedding verb such as to announce, I predict an intermediate scope reading. In all other cases, a topicmarked indefinite must take widest scope. This is a different prediction than is made by the approach of Kratzer (1998). In her approach, it is argued that intermediate scope readings arise in the context of attitude verbs. It is not clear, however, which verbs exactly count as attitude verbs and whether this is the same class of verbs that embed topic-comment structures.29 But only when this question is finally settled can we investigate whether the predictions that come with this account are actually borne out. Note finally that there seems to be a clear relationship between topic-comment structure embedding verbs and those verbs that allow for embedded V2-clauses in German.30 Usually, embedded clauses in German are verb-last constructions and are introduced by a complementizer. There are, however, some verbs that allow for the embedding of V2-clauses without complementizer, although this word order is usually only grammatical in matrix clauses. Interestingly, embedded V2-clauses in German have often been argued to have so-called assertive proto-force (see Gärtner, 2002; Truckenbrodt, 2006 and references therein). It is tempting to assume that such protoassertions can be divided into topic and comment just like usual matrix clauses due to their assertive nature, whereas other dependent non-assertive propositions cannot be conceived of as topic-comment structures. (6.67)

a. Peter glaubt, er sei/ist

intelligent.

Peter believes he would be/is intelligent

‘Peter believes that he is intelligent.’ b. Peter kündigte an, Maria würde/werde wohl Peter announced

Maria would/will

gewinnen.

apparently win

‘Peter announced that Maria would win.’ 28 Some readers might be able to get an apparent intermediate scope reading for (6.66), i.e. a functional (wide scope) reading, where the DP ein Dozent (some lecturer) is interpreted functionally as ein Dozent von ihm (some lecturer of him). The sentence can then receive a reading that says that there exists some specific kind of lecturer for each student, say his supervisor, such that the student will leave immediately if he turns up. As argued above, these functional readings should not be confused with genuine intermediate scope readings. 29 Peter Staudacher suggested to me that the class of topic-comment structure embedding verbs can be conceived of as the class of ‘intentional verbs’ that express some kind of speaker’s intention such as e.g. to believe, to want, to intend and the like. 30 I thank Joanna Blaszczak for pointing me to this relationship.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 251 c. ∗ Peter bedauert, er habe/hat Peter regrets

Maria angerufen.

he would have/has Maria called

d. Peter bedauert, dass er Maria angerufen hat. Peter regrets

that he Maria called

has

‘Peter regrets that he has called Maria.’ Example (6.67) shows that glauben (to think) and ankündigen (to announce) allow for embedded V2-clauses in German. As (6.67c,d) illustrate, bedauern (to regret) can embed usual verb-last clauses with complementizers, but no V2-clauses. According to the suggestion that V2-embedders are topic-comment embedders, glauben (to think) and ankündigen (to announce), but not bedauern (to regret) should be treated as topiccomment structure embedding verbs. This is in line with findings of Kuroda (2005), who shows that in Japanese the marker wa – in its thematic (≈ aboutness-topical) reading – cannot be embedded under (the Japanese translation of) to regret, but can be embedded under (the Japanese translation of) to think or to know. In German, it is debateable whether the verb wissen (to know) embeds V2-clauses or not. On the one hand, it is possible to utter a sentence like the following: (6.68) Peter weiß, er ist intelligent. Peter knows he is intelligent

‘Peter knows that he is intelligent.’ On the other hand, people have argued (see Reis, 1997; Truckenbrodt, 2006) that the V2-clause in (6.68) is not properly subordinated. It rather functions as the matrix clause with an inserted parenthetic ich weiß (I know). I will set this issue aside in this book and consider only clear instances of (non-)V2-embedders. Consider now the subsequent examples, which support the assumption that the existence of intermediate scope readings is dependent on the existence of a topic-comment structure embedding operator. (6.69) (Last week, I went to a horse-race every day. It was funny:) #

Alle Pferde haben alle Rennen gewonnen, die an ↑EInem Tag stattfanden.

All horses have

all races

won

that at

one

day took-place

‘All horses won all races that took place on one day.’ (6.69) does not seem to make sense (only maybe marginally in a functional reading of the indefinite). The only reading that would make sense is the intermediate scope reading. But the sentence has no intermediate scope reading saying that for each horse there was one day (for horse A it was Monday, for horse B Tuesday, etc.) such that the horse won all races that took place on that day. It only supports a very strange reading that there was one day when all horses won all races, which contradicts our world knowledge that usually horse races do not allow for more than one winning horse. (There is another contrastive reading, which is equally odd, namely that all horses won all races that took place on one day as opposed to other races that took place on two or three days.) Although world knowledge clearly supports the intermediate scope reading, no such reading is available. This example thus constitutes a clear

252


counterexample to a pragmatic explanation for missing intermediate scope readings as put forth by (Reinhart, 1997; Winter, 1997): although the intermediate scope reading is the only plausible one, it is missing. A modification of the sentence, indicated in (6.69), makes the intermediate scope reading available. (6.70) (Last week, I went to a horse-race every day. It was funny:) Von allen Pferden wurde berichtet, sie hätten alle Rennen gewonnen, die of

all

horses

was

reported

they had

all races

won

that

an ↑EInem Tag stattgefunden hatten. at

one

day taken-place

had

‘All horses were reported to have won all races that had taken place on one day.’ In (6.70), the verb berichten (to report) can be taken as a topic-comment structure embedding operator that allows the respective indefinite to take scope over it. If berichten (report) is conceived of as a topic-comment structure embedding verb, the above examples support the claim that (genuine) intermediate scope readings are licensed only by topic-comment structure embedding operators. When such operators are missing, no intermediate scope is available. Note that the emphatic realization of the indefinite einem Tag (one day) is necessary to bring about the intermediate scope reading in (6.70), which supports the assumption that the involved indefinites are topical indefinites that have to be analyzed as taking wide scope with respect to the topic-comment structure embedding operator in which they are embedded. The emphatic stress pattern seems to indicate that the indefinite is interpreted as topical and hence the intermediate scope reading is available. If the indefinite is realized in its slim form, the sentence only supports a (redundant and very bizarre) narrow scope reading, because the hearer does not interpret an embedded indefinite as topical by default. If the speaker indicates that it is used as topical, the reading we are after becomes available.31 Further evidence for this account comes from the following examples. (6.71)

a. Jeder Student hat versprochen, zur every student has promised

Frau

Party zu kommen, wenn ↑EIne

to-the party to come,

if

some

kommt.

woman comes

‘Every student promised to come to the party if some woman comes.’ b. Jeder Student kommt zur Party, wenn ↑EIne Frau kommt. Every student comes to-the party, if

some woman comes

‘Every student will come to the party if some woman comes.’ 31 Proponents

of the theory of (Kratzer, 1998) (see Section 4.7.2) would probably argue that the intermediate scope reading is actually evoked due to a specific interpretation of the indefinite with respect to the report-operator, which can, of course, be taken to be an opaque operator. Recall from Section 4.7.2 that certain intermediate scope readings (that cannot be brought about by a choice function interpretation) are analysed to stem from a de re interpretation of the involved indefinite (or the eventuality in which it is embedded) with respect to some opaque operator. It could furthermore be argued that the slim variant of the indefinite cannot be interpreted as presuppositional and that this is the reason why an intermediate scope reading is missing in this case. Kratzer (1998) is not explicit about this point.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 253 (6.71a) does and (6.71b) does not have an intermediate scope reading for the indefinite. Again, the intermediate scope reading in (6.71a) is only available if the indefinite appears in its emphatic variant, which suggests that topic marking plays a role in bringing out the intermediate scope reading. The same contrast can be seen in the following example in German. (6.72) We are 26 organizers for a big conference and we made the following deal: a. # Jeder von uns kümmert sich um jeden Gast, dessen Name everyone of

us looks-after himself about every guest whose name

mit ↑EInem Buchstaben beginnt. with some

letter

starts

‘Everyone of us looks after each guest whose name starts with some letter.’ b. Jeder von uns hat versprochen, sich um jeden Gast zu everyone of

us has promised

himself about every guest to

kümmern, dessen Name mit ↑EInem Buchstaben beginnt. look-after whose name with some

letter

starts

‘Everyone of us has promised to look after every guest whose name starts with some letter.’ The intermediate scope reading for sentence (6.72a) would be very plausible: For every x of us there is a specific letter y such that x looks after every guest whose name starts with y. But the sentence in (a) does not receive this reading and seems entirely odd, only very marginally receiving the implausible widest scope reading, where there is one letter l and everyone looks after all guests whose names start with l. The account presented in this section predicts this very fact. As there is no topic-comment structure embedding operator, there is no way to derive an intermediate scope reading for the indefinite einem Buchstaben (some letter). As expected, the intermediate scope reading is easily available with a topic-comment embedding operator such as versprechen (promise) in (6.72b).32 Unfortunately, for a characterization of the class of topic-comment structure embedding operators I have not much more to offer than I already mentioned in footnote 29, where I reported Peter Staudacher’s (p.c.) speculation that this class could consist of the ‘intentional verbs’ that express some kind of speaker’s intention, e.g. to believe, to want, to intend and the like. Much more work is needed here and I have to leave this an issue for future research (but see Ebert et al. to appear for further discussion). 32 As a side remark, I checked the reliability of my own judgments about the foregoing examples by presenting the odd variants (i.e. (6.69) and (6.72a)) to non-linguists, who all strongly rejected these sentences, because they could not make any sense of them. I then presented the variants that I claim allow for intermediate scope (i.e. (6.70) and (6.72b)) a few minutes later. Sometimes even without noticing that they were presented different sentences than before, they remarked that now they could see what the sentences meant. This shows at least that there is a clear contrast between the two variants concerning the availability of an intermediate scope reading.

254

6.5.2


Analysis

Recall what has been said about context update so far. If the topical component of a structured meaning hαT , αC i is familiar, i.e. already available in a context c, this context is updated with the ‘standard’ meaning αT (αC ). If it is unfamiliar and passes the Topic Condition, another update is performed in two steps. First, a suitable address for αT is generated and second, this address is used instead of αT . This idea was formalized by means of an illocutionary operator TopAssert (cf. Definition 6.2). However, after considering the facts about intermediate scope readings, we see that this interpretation mechanism for assertions of topic-comment structures is just a special case of a more general scheme. The general scheme seems to be that whenever a topic-comment structure embedding operator Op embeds a structure hαT , αC i, the two steps detailed above are performed with respect to this operator. This means that the general scheme seems to be as follows, where I let Addr(P, αT ) stand informally for the generation of a suitable address. (6.73) Op(hαT , αC i)

Addr(P, αT ) ∧ Op(αC (F(P )))

The case of the operator Op being an assertion operator is then just an instance of this scheme. More precisely, in the case the operator in question is an illocutionary operator, I assume Addr(P, αT ) to be a separate speech act of topic introduction. This has already been proposed by Jacobs (1984), who introduces an illocutionary operator Frame for the introduction of a topic, which sets the frame for the interpretation of the comment.33 Using Jacobs’ terminology, we get the following final definition for the general interpretation scheme for topic-comment structures.34 Definition 6.3 (Topic Assert) Op(hαT , αC i)  Op(αC (αT )) if αT is familiar       (Op illocutionary)   Frame ∃P [MW (P, αT )] & Op αC (F(P ))) ∃P [MW (P, αT )] ∧ Op(αC (F(P ))) (Op non-illocutionary)     if αT is unfamiliar and passes the Topic Condition     undefined else According to this definition, if Op is an illocutionary operator, two speech acts are performed in the unfamiliarity case (conjoined by the speech act conjunction &). We could say that the Frame act sets the interpretation frame (as Jacobs, 1984 termed it) for the following Op act, by establishing a discourse referent/suitable storage address 33 Note that Jacobs (1984) argues that topics (at least in German) always have a frame-setting function, and does not assume an aboutness function for topics as I do. However, his proposal is transferable to my framework in the way indicated below. 34 As opposed to the previous formulation of the definition, for the case of a non-illocutionary operator, the scope of the existential quantification over P does not reach over the conjunction. As I have to assume a dynamic construal of quantification, this is an irrelevant change as the existential impact dynamically reaches over the subsequent conjunction. I actually implemented this change only to keep the non-illocutionary and the illocutionary case entirely parallel in formulation, but of course nothing hinges on it.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 255 P , which is used instead of the topical expression to perform the actual Op act. The assumption of two separate acts of 1. establishing a topic and 2. using it as the object in a predicative act is reminiscent of the distinction between the reference act and the predication act in (Searle, 1969). It furthermore brings out the characteristics of categorical sentences argued for by Brentano and Marty (see Section 2.1), namely that they involve a Doppelurteil (double judgment), i.e. a judgment that is performed in two steps: the act of identifying an entity and the act of evaluating whether the predication made of this entity is true or false. The distinction between recognition of a topic and using it as a topic is most explicitly drawn in (Lambrecht, 1994, pp. 184ff.) and referred to as the principle of the separation of reference and role. Lambrecht argues that especially in spoken language it is often the case that the act of referring to a topic, introducing it, or making it salient is (overtly) separated from using it in its topical role. This is usually performed via dislocation constructions or presentational sentences. First, the (future) topic is pointed at via presenting it in a designated construction or via e.g. left dislocation, and then it is used as a topic. Hence, what I argue to be the interpretative mechanism for indefinite topics – the consecutive performance of two acts, the act of topic establishment and the assertive act – is, according to Lambrecht (1994), often made overt by way of certain constructions in spoken French or German. Note that the TopAssert operator introduced above in Definition (6.2) is a special case of this more general scheme in (6.3), where the involved operator is an assertive operator. If the operator is non-illocutionary (such as the verb ankündigen (to announce)), the establishment of a discourse referent/storage address is simply part of the ordinary semantic content and will thus interact with other scopal elements in the same expression. In the following, Addr(P, αT ) ∧ . . . will stand as shorthand for Frame ∃P [MW (P, αT )] & . . . or ∃P [MW (P, αT )] ∧ . . ., depending on the nature of the involved operator. There is a possibility that the topic-introducing speech act fails, namely when the speaker wants to use a non-existent entity as topic (cf. also Lambrecht, 1994, pp. 156–57. for reasoning along similar lines). These are exactly the cases discussed in Section 4.6.2 (see examples (4.58)–(4.66)). I repeat (4.59a) and (4.61b) below. (6.74)

a. Yesterday, the king of France visited the exhibition. b. Some even prime which is greater than 2 has less than 5 figures.

The treatment of topical indefinites proposed in this section accounts quite naturally for Strawson’s observation that only sentences containing non-referring topical items such as example (6.74a) have the air of presupposition failure or, as we have called it before: give rise to ‘squeamishness’ about giving a truth-value judgment, whereas the same non-referring items do not evoke such ‘squeamish’ feelings when they are not used as topics. In these cases, the topic-establishing act fails. The sentences are therefore deviant, but not false. The same holds for topical indefinites with empty restrictions, as illustrated in (6.74b). In both cases, the topic-establishing act fails, because the topic cannot felicitously be established. With a non-referring definite, there is no entity that can be referred to and hence there is also no entity that can serve as the aboutness topic that is to be established in this topic-establishing act. As for the indefinite in (6.74b), there is again no possibility of establishing a topic that can be talked

256


about in the proceeding assertion act, because the restrictor set of the indefinite is empty. Because this account derives wide scope via topicality, it is predicted that only the wide scope indefinites give rise to the reported truth-value gap intuitions, as only then is there a topic-establishing act that can can fail. So what is analyzed as presupposition failure in other approaches is taken to be an infelicitous frame-setting speech act in my theory. The first advantage of this conception over the presuppositional theories is that my approach is not subject to the problems pointed out in Section 4.6.2 (e.g. that the Hey, wait a minute-test shows quite clearly that not only the examples in (6.74) contain existential presuppositions, but also those sentences that speakers are inclined to judge as true or false, even if they contain non-referring presuppositional DPs). The second advantage is that ‘specific’ indefinites are not literally taken to be presuppositional. Hence, I do not have to make the assumption that ‘specific’ indefinites are presuppositional on the one hand, but only resolvable via accommodation and not via binding on the other. Yet, topical, i.e. wide scope, indefinites give rise to some kind of infelicity if their restrictor set is empty. Support for my analysis comes from (Dekker, 1998). He takes it that utterances are divided into an assertion and a presuppositional/backgrounded part and points out that there are cases where one of these parts conveys something which is right and the other something which is wrong. His seminal example is the following (see Dekker, 1998, ex. (23), (24), p. 319). (6.75)

a. Nic: A man is trying to push that oak down! b. Leo: It is a woman, but she is indeed trying to push that oak out of her way!

According to (Dekker, 1998), in (6.75b) the background (constituted by the utterance in (a)) consists of two objects (about which it is said that the first is trying to push the second). (Dekker, 1998, p. 322) writes that in (6.75) Leo agrees with the assertion, although he objects against the characterization of the person as a man. Furthermore, he writes: Propositions can be seen to involve true assertions about individuals also when these individuals are not identified appropriately. In our terminology, we could say that the frame-setting act is done by a false characterization, namely by describing the individual under discussion as a man, although in fact it is a woman. Yet, it is felicitous: the hearer knows whom the speaker is referring to. The actual assertion that the individual under discussion tries to push an oak down is true. Simplifying matters a little, we could say that the frame setting act fails, whereas the assertive part is true. Altogether, the utterance (6.75a) is deviant, because there is something true and something wrong about it. Due to the general nature of the scheme given in Definition 6.3 we can now account for intermediate scope readings. Those can come about if topic-comment embedding operators are themselves embedded under other operators. The following formula shows this schematically.

(6.76) Op2 (. . . Op1 (hαT , αC i) . . .) Op2 (. . . Addr(P, αT ) ∧ Op1 (αC (F(P ))) . . .)

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 257 As can be seen in this schematic, the existential quantification from the address generation for the topic of the embedded operator Op1 has scope over Op1 , but still narrow scope with regard to Op2 . Because Op2 may itself be a topic-comment embedding operator (such as the outermost Assert), we expect to have multiple topics per sentence. That embedded sentences introduce their own topic-comment structure is not an unusual assumption. In the following schema the comment component of the outermost (embedding) structure has been boxed to improve perspicuity. (6.77) Op2 (hαT 2 , . . . Op1 (hαT 1 , αC1 i) . . . i) Addr(P2 , αT 2 )∧Op2 ( (. . . Addr(P1 , αT 1 ) ∧ Op1 (αC1 (F(P1 ))) . . .) (F(P2 ))) To illustrate the general interpretation scheme at work, let us consider example (6.64). Recall that in this sentence ankündigen (to announce) is a topic-comment structure embedding operator. More precisely, the semantic counterpart announce takes two arguments: one of type e standing for the anouncer, and one of type t for the announced proposition. The latter may now come in the form of a topic-comment structure, such that we may end up with something of the form announce(x, hαT , αC i). Hence we expect there to be two readings induced by the topic marking of ein Dozent (some lecturer): a wide scope reading, where some lecturer is the topical component of a topic-comment structure of the outermost Assert operator, and an intermediate scope reading, where it is the topical component of a topic-comment structure of the embedded operator announce. Consider the wide scope reading first, in which the DP ein Dozent (some lecturer) is the topic of the entire sentence. In this case the semantics of this DP will end up as the topic part of a topic-comment structure of the outermost Assert operator, whereas the second argument of announce will just be an unstructured proposition (here some lect denotes the generalized quantifier corresponding to some lecturer).

(6.78) Assert some lect, λG(∀x[student(x) → announce(x, G(show ) → leave(x))]) Addr(P, some lect) ∧ Assert ∀x[student(x) → announce(x, (P ⊆ show ) → leave(x))] = Frame ∃P [MW (P, some lect)] & Assert ∀x[student(x) → announce(x, (P ⊆ show ) → leave(x))]

The intermediate scope reading is derivable if the DP ein Dozent (some lecturer) is the topic of a topic-comment structure that is embedded by the verb ankündigen (to announce).

258


(6.79) Assert ∀x student(x) →

announce(x, some lect, λG(G(show ) → leave(x)))

Assert ∀x student(x) → Addr(P, some lect)

∧ announce(x, (P ⊆ show → leave(x)) =

Assert ∀x student(x) → ∃P [MW (P, some lect)]

∧ announce(x, (P ⊆ show → leave(x))

Formula (6.79) correctly represents the intermediate scope reading of (6.64). It follows directly that (6.66) cannot have such an intermediate scope reading, because the sentence does not contain any topic-comment structure embedding operator such as announce. Hence, there is only one possible way to interpret the DP ein Dozent (some lecturer), namely as the topic of the unique outermost topic-comment structure, i.e. as the topic of the entire sentence. This then yields the widest scope reading for the indefinite.

6.5.3 Problems Unfortunately, this account does not yield a convincing explanation for the intermediate scope reading of the original example (4.28). It is repeated below as (6.80), realizing the emphatic version of the indefinite in (6.80a) and the slim one in (6.80b). (6.80c,d) show the German variants of the sentence. (6.80)

a. Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem. b. Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves a problem. c. Die meisten Linguisten haben sich the most

die

linguists

have

jede Analyse angeschaut,

themselves every analysis looked-at

↑EIN Problem löst.

which some problem solves

‘Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem.’ d. Die meisten Linguisten haben sich the most

die

linguists

have

jede Analyse angeschaut,


ein ProBLEM löst.

which a

problem

solves

‘Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves a problem.’ The variants with the slim indefinites in (6.80b) and (6.80d) seem to support only a narrow scope reading. Hence, the wide and intermediate scope readings of (6.80a,c)

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 259 must be genuine. Furthermore, it does not seem that there is a functional reading involved, because there is not necessarily a natural function that we think of when we understand the sentence in an intermediate scope reading. (6.80a,c) can be continued by a pair-list elaboration as given in (6.81). (6.81) For linguist A it is antecedent contained deletion, for linguist B it is binding and for linguist C it is conditionals. As there is no topic-comment structure embedding operator between most linguists and every analysis, the account outlined in this section does not yield a satisfactory explanation for the existence of such an intermediate scope reading. One possible explanation for the felicitous pair-list continuation in (6.81) might be that there is a highly salient function that is triggered by (6.80a,c) and that is so salient that it does not need to be mentioned. It is the function the problem that worries the respective linguist most. (6.81) is then just the extensional version of this implicitly given function. Another tentative explanation as for why (6.80a,c) support an intermediate scope reading has to do with the involved intonation pattern. At least in the German variant, there is a peculiarity concerning the intonation pattern that could be the clue to an understanding of what is actually going on. In (6.82), I indicate the accent that has to be realized in an out-of-the-blue context with capitals. (6.82) Die meisten Linguisten haben sich the most

linguists

have

JEde Analyse angeschaut, die


which

↑EIN Problem löst. some problem solves

‘Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem.’ It is striking that to get the relevant intermediate scope reading it seems necessary that the main accent of the main clause falls not (only)35 on the NP-complement of the direct object of the verb Analyse (analysis) as would be expected, but (also) on the determiner jeder (every). If (6.80c) is uttered with stress on the verb angeschaut (looked at) or only on the NP-complement Analyse (analysis), the sentence seems to have only a wide scope reading for the indefinite ein Problem (some problem) and no intermediate scope reading, as would be expected in my account. (6.83)

a. Die meisten Linguisten haben sich the most

die

linguists

have

jede AnaLYse angeschaut,

themselves every analysis

looked-at



‘Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem.’ 35 The sentence can be uttered in two ways: either with only a heavy accent on the determiner jeder (every) or with two accents, one falling on the determiner and one on the NP-complement Analyse (analysis).

260

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS b. Die meisten Linguisten haben sich the most

die

linguists

have

jede Analyse ANgeschaut,




‘Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves some problem.’ In other words, the peculiar stress pattern of (6.82) is necessary for the intermediate scope reading to emerge. The reason for the intermediate scope reading of (6.82) could then be the following: it is not the indefinite that takes wide intermediate scope out of its island, but, in fact, it is the universal quantifier that has to take narrow scope with respect to the indefinite. The reason for the narrow scope reading of the universal could be that it is focal. It has been proposed at various places that focal quantifiers have to or tend to take narrow scope (see Pafel, 2005, pp. 82–84 and references cited therein). Under this assumption, we would end up with a configuration where the quantifier die meisten Linguisten (most linguists) takes widest scope and the universal quantifier jede Analyse (every analysis) narrowest scope, which looks like an intermediate scope reading of the indefinite ein Problem (some problem).36

6.6 Functional Topics This section37 will be concerned with the topic interpretation of functional DPs such as a picture of himself. I will argue that these DPs can be aboutness topics in the sense developed so far. The functional topic then receives a wide scope reading as generally predicted in my framework. It will turn out that this wide scope reading will be a functional wide scope reading in the sense introduced in the preceding chapters. I have shown in Section 3.3 that this reading can be told apart from a simple narrow scope reading. Functional DPs therefore constitute a further argument for the treatment of topical DPs that I have proposed up to this point. It has long been observed that DPs containing a bound pronoun can occur in leftdislocated position (see e.g. Vat, 1981). 36 Manfred Krifka pointed out to me that the explanation given here would predict an intermediate scope reading also for non-topicable quantifiers in embedded position, because I suggest that it is the narrow scope of the focal DP jede Analyse (every analysis) that is responsible for the apparent intermediate scope of the indefinite in (6.80a,c). Hence, the nature of the embedded quantifier should play no role for the availability of the intermediate scope reading. Die meisten Linguisten haben sich jede Analyse angeschaut, die die meisten/mehr als drei Probleme löst. (Most linguists have looked at every analysis that solves most/more than three problems.), with non-topicable quantifiers embedded in the relative clause, should thus allow for an intermediate scope reading of die meisten/mehr als drei Probleme (most/more than three problems), which is clearly not the case. I have to leave this issue unresolved for now. 37 I would like to thank Werner Frey for drawing my attention to functionally dependent items in topicpositions in the first place and for stimulating discussions on this matter. The basic ideas for the treatment of topical functional DPs in my framework were suggested to me by Ede Zimmermann, to whom I am very grateful. I have discussed many of the issues in this chapter with Christian Ebert, with whom I also developed the technical framework (see also Ebert and Endriss, 2007). Furthermore, work on this chapter has been influenced a lot by discussions of functional readings with Andreas Haida and Yael Sharvit.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 261 (6.84) Seinen Doktorvater, den hat jeder Linguist zuerst angerufen. his

supervisor,

RP has every linguist first

rang-up

‘Every linguist called up his supervisor first.’ As left dislocated elements are necessarily aboutness topics (see Frey, 2004a), this raises the question what it is that makes seinen Doktorvater (his supervisor) the aboutness topic of the sentence in (6.84). In other words: how can a functionally dependent item constitute what a sentence is about? This section will give a possible answer to this question. As discussed in previous chapters, indefinite DPs can be functional. These functional indefinites can appear in topic positions. Consider again example (3.45) (repeated below as (6.85a)) from Section 3.3 and a variant of this example given in (6.85b). The assumed context for the sentences is also repeated below. In einer Schule wollte die Kunstlehrerin mit ihren Schülern eine Collage basteln und bat daher alle Schüler, zur nächsten Kunststunde ein Bild mitzubringen. Am Tag davor erinnerte sie die Kinder noch einmal daran, an alles zu denken, weil normalerweise immer jemand irgendetwas vergisst. Als sie dann zum Kunstunterricht kam, war sie total erstaunt, ... (At school, the arts teacher wanted to make a collage with her pupils and asked each pupil to bring a picture to the next lecture. The day before the arts class she reminded her pupils again not to forget, because usually at least some children forget what they were asked to bring. When the teacher came to the arts lecture, she was surprised, ...) (6.85)

a. weil

↑EIN Bild

von sich

because some picture of

u¨ berraschenderweise jeder Schüler

himself surprisingly

every pupil

mitgebracht hatte. brought-along had

‘because, surprisingly, every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ b. denn ↑EIN Bild von sich, das hatte u¨ berraschenderweise jeder because some picture of


every


brought-along

‘because, surprisingly, every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ c. ∃f [picture f n (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] As argued in Section 2.2, the functional indefinite ein Bild von sich (some picture of himself ) has to be the topic of each of the two sentences given in example (6.85). In (6.85a), the functional indefinite occupies the topic position of the German middle field and in (6.85b) it is left-dislocated. In Section 3.3, we have discussed the fact that sentences (6.85a,b) do not exhibit narrow scope readings. They do not have a reading that simply maps every pupil to some picture he brought, although such a reading is

262


made highly salient by the context.38 The only reading the sentences actually have is given in (6.85c), which I dubbed a functional wide scope reading. We have also seen that the simple narrow scope reading is available for (6.88), where ein Bild von sich (a picture of himself ) is not the topic of the sentence. (6.88) denn

jeder Schüler hatte tatsächlich ein BILD von sich

because every pupil

had indeed

a

picture of

mitgebracht.


‘because every pupil had indeed brought a picture of himself.’ In the following, I will argue that functional topics exist and that they invoke a wide scope reading of the functional item, as is predicted by my general treatment of topics. In the next section, I will discuss how this functional wide scope reading comes about. As for topical functional DPs, the proposed treatment of aboutness topics introduced in the preceding section is not straightforwardly applicable. The topical item is required to provide an address where the information of the remaining sentence can be stored during the context update. While Reinhart (1981) only considers referential items (i.e. individuals) as reasonable aboutness topics, I have shown that a certain class of quantifiers can also provide sensible addresses. I have argued that topical DPs always take wide scope, thereby accounting for the exceptional wide scope of indefinites. The scope behavior was shown to be simply a consequence of the process of deriving the storage address from the quantifier itself. I will now show how functional DPs fit into this picture. 38 Note that without the accent on the determiner, other readings of the sentence might be possible. As discussed in Section 5.2 (see also Section 2.2), the indicated intonation pattern is taken to be the ‘neutral’ one for the topical wide scope reading, i.e. direct indefinite aboutness topics are usually realized emphatically (as opposed to indirect ones active in generic and QV-readings). This also holds for functional readings and does not affect the argument. Sentence (6.86a) (uttered in the same context as above) seems to have a narrow scope reading, but it can only be interpreted contrastively, i.e. (6.86a) is deviant in isolation, but it becomes acceptable if (6.86b) follows it.

(6.86)

a. ... denn (?) ein BILD von sich, das hatte (diesmal tatsächlich) jeder Schüler because a picture of himself RP had (this-time actually) every pupil mitgebracht. brought-along ‘... because every pupil had actually brought a picture of himself this time.’ b. Aber sonst hatten die Schüler mal wieder alles vergessen. but else had the pupils -time again everything forgotten ‘But apart from that, as usual, the pupils had forgotten everything.’

Parallel to the cases discussed in Section 2.2, (6.86a) contains a left-dislocated DP that is not topical. This is evidenced by the fact that it only receives a contrastive interpretation. If the left-dislocated phrase receives a property-interpretation due to the presence of an opaque operator as in (6.87), an (apparent) narrow scope interpretation is also possible. As argued above, such readings receive a different treatment and have to be kept apart from the cases in which an indefinite constitutes a direct aboutness topic of a sentence, which are the cases we are interested in. Such property-readings also emerge with functional DPs. Therefore the following example does not constitute a counterexample to the claim that topical indefinites serving as direct aboutness topics receive a wide scope interpretation. (6.87) Einen Rat von seinem großen BRUder, den würde niemand gerne befolgen. a(n) advise of his big brother RP would nobody like follow ‘Nobody likes to follow advice from his big brother.’ It seems that niemand (nobody) takes scope over the indefinite in (6.87). But this is probably due to the property-reading of the indefinite in this opaque context (cf. Section 5.3.2).

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 263

6.6.1

The Interpretation of Functional DPs

To deal with functionally dependent elements, we have to lift the entire framework to functional types. A dependent DP such as ein Bild von sich (some picture of himself) is translated as a function from individuals to generalized quantifiers, assigning every individual x the GQ ‘a picture of x’. (6.89)

ein some λP λQ.∃x[P (x) ∧ Q(x)]

Bild picture λx.picture(x)

λP λQ.∃x[P (x) ∧ Q(x)]

λx.picture(x)

λP λQ.∃x[P (x) ∧ Q(x)]

von of λyλx.of (x, y)

sich himself λz.z

λzλx.of (x, z)

λzλx.picture(x) ∧ of (x, z)

λzλQ.∃x[picture(x) ∧ of (x, z) ∧ Q(x)] In the spirit of Jacobson (1999), semantic composition involving functional elements (such as sich (himself ) above) is carried out by 1. saturating the functional argument (here: z), 2. performing the standard semantic composition, and 3. abstracting over the functional argument again. With this treatment, the empty quantifier ∅hhe,ti,ti is assigned to all z for which no pictures of them exist. To take care of the binding of functional elements by other constituents, Jacobson (1999) proposes the Z-operator: (6.90) Z ≡ λRhe,he,tii λfhe,ei λxe .R(f (x))(x) The operator Z is a type-shifter for transitive verbs. It is applied when a transitive verb has to be applied to a function of type he, ei, e.g. the function his mother. (6.91)

Every man

(loves

(his mother))

λQ.∀x[man(x) → Q(x)]

Z(love)

λz.mother (z)


λf λx.love(f (x))(x)

λz.mother (z)


λx.love(mother (x))(x)

∀x[man(x) → love(mother (x))(x)] To derive the representation for a sentence with a topical functional DP, the topiccomment structure is constructed in the way illustrated in Section 6.2.2. In sentence (3.45), repeated in a simplified version as (6.92), ein Bild von sich (some picture of himself ) constitutes the topic, whereas the rest of the sentence builds the comment. (6.92) ↑EIN Bild

von sich,

some picture of

das hat jeder Schüler mitgebracht.

himself RP has every pupil

brought-along

‘Every pupil has brought a certain picture of himself.’ For such cases, we need a type-shifter for transitive verbs such that the result can combine with a functional generalized quantifier such as the one in (6.89). I call this type-shifter Z17 . It is a variant of Jacobson’s Z and Winter’s Z0 (see Winter, 2004).

264


(6.93) Z17 ≡ λRhe,he,tii λℜhe,hhe,ti,tii λxe .ℜ(x)(λy.R(x, y)) In the following derivation (6.94) of the final topic-comment structure for (6.92), I simplify matters and assume that the left-dislocated DP is interpreted in its originating position, i.e. that it has reconstructed. Note that ‘(6.89)’ in the following formulae has to be read as an abbreviation for the semantic representation of the parameterized generalized quantifier in the bottom line of (6.89). (6.94)

[ein Bild von sich ]T a picture of himself

Jeder Schüler Every pupil

brachte brought

λQ.∀x[pupil (x) → Q(x)]

Z17 (bring)

λQ.∀x[pupil (x) → Q(x)]

λℜλx.ℜ(x)(λy.bring(x, y)) h(6.89), λℜ.ℜi

h(6.89), λℜ.ℜi

λQ.∀x[pupil (x) → Q(x)] h(6.89), λℜλx.ℜ(x)(λy.bring(x, y))i

(6.89), λℜ.∀x[pupil (x) → ℜ(x)(λy.bring(x, y))] The type-lifted transitive verb bring, i.e. Z17 (bring), needs a functional DP such as ein Bild von sich (some picture of himself ) as its argument. This DP is the topic of the sentence and therefore introduces the topic-comment structure hλzλQ.∃x[picture(x) ∧ of (x, z) ∧ Q(x)], λℜ.ℜi. The comment part of this DP, i.e. λℜ.ℜ, has to combine with the remaining comment of the sentence. This is done according to the rules specified in Section 6.2.2: λℜ.ℜ is applied to some ℜ, then Z17 (bring) is applied to the resulting ℜ, and then ℜ is abstracted from the result again. As pointed out before, topic-comment structures are designed in such a way that the comment can always be applied to the topic. If this application is performed for the final structure in (6.94), the result is the ordinary narrow scope reading for the indefinite. (6.95) λℜ.∀x[pupil (x) → ℜ(x)(λy.bring(x, y))] (λyλQ.∃z[pic(z) ∧ of (z, y) ∧ Q(z)]) = ∀x[pupil (x) → λQ[∃z[pic(z) ∧ of (z, x) ∧ Q(z)]](λy.bring(x, y))] = ∀x[pupil (x) → ∃z[pic(z) ∧ of (z, x) ∧ bring(x, z)]] However, I have argued above that indefinite topics cannot be treated like familiarity topics and hence do not simply play the argument role of an application of the comment to this topic. If the involved GQ is topicable, the following three steps are performed: first, a suitable representative for the indefinite has to be found, second, a discourse referent for this representative has to be created, and third, the representative stands proxy for the entire GQ and combines with the comment part of the sentence. I assume that exactly the same procedure is performed with functional indefinite topics, also.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 265

6.6.2

Topic Interpretation and the Topic Condition with Functional DPs

Analogously to the non-functional cases, the topic-comment structure in (6.94) involves a non-familiar quantificational topic and necessitates the creation of a discourse referent for a ‘sensible’ representative of the quantifier ein Bild von sich (some picture of himself ). In the cases discussed so far, the interpretation of a topic-marked quantifier resulted in the derivation of a storage address for the sentence during context update, if the corresponding GQ passed the Topic Condition. I showed that the Topic Condition yields the correct classification of the licit quantifiers, as it basically checks whether the GQ semantics of the DP is such that a sensible address can possibly be provided. The introduction of functional elements in quantificational DPs does not affect the question of whether the respective DP is a licit topic or not. This is illustrated in example (6.96) involving left dislocation.39 (6.96)

a. ↑EIN Bild

von sich,

some picture of

das hat jeder

mitgebracht.

himself RP has everybody brought-along

’Everybody has brought a certain picture of himself.’ b. ∗ Höchstens drei / ?? Mehr als drei / ∗ Fast alle / ↑DREI / ↑EInige at most

three /

Bilder von sich, pictures of

more than three / almost all / three / several

die hat jeder

mitgebracht.

himself RP has everybody brought-along

(6.96) shows that the same quantifiers that are licensed as topics in general (cf. example (6.1)) are also licensed as topics when they have functionally dependent NP-complements. These data raise the question about the correct treatment of functional topical quantificational DPs. What ‘address’ is created in the case of functional DPs? And how can the Topic Condition be modified to handle functional DPs? I propose to extend storage address creation to functions by employing minimal witness functions (MWF ) f , which find a minimal witness set for every quantifier G(y) of the functional generalized quantifier G. Definition 6.4 (Minimal Witness Function) MW (G(y)) iff MW (G(y)) 6= ∅ MWF (f, G) ≡ ∀y.f (y) ∈ {{∗}} else For all y it holds that f (y) is a minimal witness set of the corresponding GQ G(y), if such a minimal witness set exists. Otherwise f (y) yields the singleton set containing the ‘absurd individual’ ∗, which falsifies every predicate that is applied to it.40 39 The starred DPs in (6.96b) are marginally possible in left-dislocated position if they are interpreted contrastively. This is parallel to the cases discussed in Section 2.2. They do not constitute topics then. The reader is asked to read the sentences in (6.96) in a neutral, non-contrastive manner. 40 Thanks to an anonymous conference reviewer for pointing me to the problem of non-existent minimal witness sets and for suggesting this as a solution. Note that in the case of topicable, i.e. non-exhaustive monotone increasing, quantifiers, MW (G(y)) is the empty set only if the quantifier denotation happens to be empty. For example, the GQ some picture of Peter could be empty because pictures of Peter might not exist. In this case, also the set of minimal witness sets of the quantifier is empty.

266


Although f above is a one-place function, the more general case of arbitrary many parameters ~y could easily be defined analogously. Now, the treatment of topiccomment structures can be straightforwardly adapted to the new definition of functional address generation through MWF in order to handle functional DPs. Definition 6.5 (Topic Assert – final version) Op(hαT , αC i)  Op(αC (αT )) if αT is familiar       (Op illocutionary)   Frame ∃f [MWF (f, αT )] & Op αC (F(f )) ∃f [MWF (f, αT )] ∧ Op(αC (F(f ))) (Op non-illocutionary)     if αT is unfamiliar and passes the Topic Condition     undefined else Note that Definition 6.3 from the preceding section is just a special case of the above definition. In fact, one can think of a standard GQ simply as an unparameterized GQ. In this case, the MWF definition boils down to the former MW definition. As in the non-functional case discussed above, there would be a type conflict if the comment αC was applied to f directly, as it expects a parameterized GQ and not a parameterized set. This conflict is solved by applying αC to the derived argument F(f ). f is type-lifted similarly to the type-lift (6.32) discussed above. (6.97) Functional Type Shift (Distributive Readings): F(fhe,he,tii ) λyλQ.f (y) ⊆ Q For the initial example (6.92) with the topic-comment structure (6.94), the topic interpretation then yields the following result:

(6.98) Assert λyλQ.∃x[pic(x) ∧ of (x, y) ∧ Q(x)], λℜ.∀x[pupil (x) → ℜ(x)(λy.bring(x, y))] = Frame ∃f [MWF (f, λyλQ.∃x[pic(x) ∧ of (x, y) ∧ Q(x)])] & Assert λℜ.∀x[pupil (x) → ℜ(x)(λy.bring(x, y))](λyλQ.f (y) ⊆ Q) = Frame ∃f [MWF (f, λyλQ.∃x[pic(x) ∧ of (x, y) ∧ Q(x)])] & Assert ∀x[pupil (x) → f (x) ⊆ λy.bring(x, y)] To paraphrase, this formula says that there is a function assigning to every individual y a minimal witness set of pictures of y (i.e. a singleton set containing one picture of y) such that this function is introduced as a topic due to a Frame act, and such that it is asserted that for every pupil x the picture that f assigns to him is among the things that he brought. Together with the requirement that f must be a nameable and informative function, this yields the desired functional wide scope reading. Now consider the case in which one of the pupils, say Paul, does not have pictures of himself. Here, the quantifier some picture of Paul is the empty quantifier. According

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 267 to Definition 6.4, the minimal witness function MWF would yield the set containing the absurd individual ∗ for Paul. As the absurd element does not satisfy any predicate, the singleton set containing it is certainly not a subset of the set λy.bring(paul , y), i.e. the set of things brought by Paul. The formula given in the last line of (6.98) would be false. This result is wanted. Sentence (6.96a) is considered false if it is not the case that every pupil brought along a certain type of picture of himself – for whatever reason that might be. In particular, it plays no role whether someone did not bring along a picture because no pictures of him exist. Definition 6.4 thus ensures that, in the end, the function is a total function from the set denoted by the NP of the binding quantifier (the set of pupils in this case) to the respective values. Eventually, in order to verify the sentence, the function has to yield a value for every pupil and this value has to have the property stated in the sentence. The reader might wonder whether the strategy proposed here yields the correct results for monotone decreasing binding quantifiers, because one might be reminded of the Reniers problem discussed in Sections 3.3.4 and 4.7. The problem resulted from the specific treatment of wide scope indefinites as choice functions in the scope of downward entailing quantifiers (or downward entailing operators in general). Let me point out that my approach does not run into problems, even if monotone decreasing quantifiers are involved. Consider (6.99a) and its representation (6.99b). a. ↑EIN Bild

(6.99)

von sich,

some picture of

das hat niemand mitgebracht.

himself RP has nobody

brought-along

‘Nobody has brought a certain picture of himself.’ b. Frame ∃f [MWF (f, λyλQ.∃x[pic(x) ∧ of (x, y) ∧ Q(x)])] & Assert ¬∃x[f (x) ⊆ λy.bring(x, y)] The formula in (6.99b) represents the correct truth conditions for (6.99a). The sentence is true if there is a nameable function f , e.g. the by now familiar function that maps people x to the picture of their first day at school, that is chosen in a Frame-setting speech act and this function is such that no x brought along the picture f (x). If no such nameable f exists, the Frame-setting speech act fails, and the sentence is considered false or infelicitous – but not true for sure. This is what the representation in (6.99b) predicts. Certainly, there might exist other functions g that are such that no x brought along g(x). But as long as these functions are not nameable, they cannot make the formula true. If they are nameable, they can and do make the formula true. But then intuition tells us that the formula should be true, as well. However, (6.99a) cannot be felicitously continued by (6.100). (6.100)

#

Nämlich sein Sterbebild.

namely

his picture-of-death

Namely the picture of himself dead. The account just presented does not predict the infelicity of the continuation in (6.100). It describes a nameable function and furthermore it is very likely that indeed nobody brought along the designated picture. It could however be argued that the infelicity is due to the contrastive interpretation that is evoked by (6.99a), probably because there

268


is some contrastive accent on niemand (nobody) in the most natural pronunciation of the sentence. This triggers the expectation for the hearer that there is some alternative to niemand (nobody), i.e. jemand (somebody)/jeder (everybody)/viele Leute (many people) such that he/they meet(s) the sentence predicate. But with the continuation in (6.100), this is impossible, because nobody can bring along a picture showing himself dead.41 As a last step, the Topic Condition has to be modified to handle functional DPs, as well. Therefore, Definition 6.1 has to be extended to Definition 6.6. Definition 6.6 (Topic Condition – final version) A parameterized quantifier G of type he, hhe, ti, tii fulfills the Topic Condition if for all y (of type e) and for all sets Y (of type he, ti) a. ∃f [MWF (f, G) ∧ (λℜ.ℜ(y)(Y ))(F(f ))]

≡

G(y)(Y )

and b. all anaphoric possibilities which are available in c + G(y)(Y ) remain available in c + ∃f [MWF (f, G) ∧ (λℜ.ℜ(y)(Y ))(F(f ))]. Simple comments are again understood in the same way as before in Definition 6.1, i.e. as not containing any other scope-inducing operators. In the case of the functional entities, however, a simple comment has the form λℜ.ℜ(y)(Y ) and is of type hhe, hhe, ti, tii, ti. As detailed above, the parameterized quantifier G fulfills the Topic Condition if the creation of a discourse referent for the minimal witness function created has no truth-conditional effect for certain general, simple, cases and if, dynamically speaking, the creation of a discourse referent does not destroy anaphoric possibilities. In this functional extension, things run entirely parallel to the non-functional case and hence the classification of licit DPs stays the same. The crucial difference lies in the storage address derived, which is now a function that maps individuals to minimal witness sets. Again, the non-functional case can be regarded as a special case involving ‘parameterized’ quantifiers with 0 parameters.

6.7 Conclusion In the presented proposal, a quantifier’s ability to be a topic and the ability to be interpreted as taking wide scope are reduced to the application of one and the same operation. The approach thus simultaneously 1. accounts for the exceptional wide 41 The problematic example and the explanation strategy to account for it were suggested to me by Manfred Krifka.

CHAPTER 6. EXCEPTIONAL WIDE SCOPE AS A TOPIC PHENOMENON 269 scope behavior of certain indefinites, 2. gives a purely semantic criterion (the Topic Condition) to single out this class of indefinites on the basis of their lexical semantics, and 3. provides a formal definition of the notion of aboutness topic for indefinites or quantifiers in general. To interpret a topical quantifier, the mechanism selects a minimal witness set of the GQ, which embodies a suitable representative for the entire GQ, and treats this minimal witness set as standing proxy for the GQ. This process of creating a suitable representative is understood as an independent frame-setting speech act. First, the topic to be talked about is created and then something is said about it. This frame-setting speech act can fail, e.g. if the restrictor set of the topical quantifier is empty. This explains why ‘specific’ indefinites, which are, in fact, topical indefinites, are often analyzed as being presuppositional. If their restrictor set is empty, the framesetting speech act fails, which can easily be misjudged as some kind of presupposition failure. Intermediate scope readings are accounted for by way of nested topic-comment structures and the assumption that topics only take wide scope with respect to their topic-comment structure embedding operator, which is possibly embedded itself under another c-commanding operator. Consequently, intermediate scope readings are only expected in the presence of topic-comment structure embedding operators. Furthermore, topics can be functional. Topical functional quantifiers are interpreted as taking functional wide scope. A monotonic extension of the proposed mechanism for the interpretation of topical quantifiers to functional ones can account for all phenomena at hand. Crucially, the class of topicable functional quantifiers is the same as the class of ordinary topical quantifiers, i.e. a quantifier is either topicable or not – whether it is functionally dependent or not.

Chapter 7

Conclusion Exceptional wide scope is a consequence of the correct treatment of topical quantifiers. This book sought to explain the exceptional wide scope behavior of certain kinds of quantifiers (among which I count the indefinites) on the basis of their topical status. My central claim was the following: topical quantifiers necessarily take wide scope. This wide scope interpretation is a direct consequence of the correct treatment of topicality. Roughly speaking, a topic needs to be established first so that it can be talked about afterwards. Disregarding nested topic-comment structures for the moment, this explains the frequent observation that topics tend to take wide scope. Topicality is understood as aboutness topicality in the sense of Reinhart (1981). A topic is what the sentence is about. In particular, a topical entity need not already be familiar at the point of utterance. It simply structures the context update in that it serves as the address for information storage during the context update. As the mechanism to derive exceptional wide scope is an information structuresensitive one, it is not expected that it is sensitive to syntactic islands. Hence, according to this mechanism, topical quantifiers are also expected to take exceptional wide scope, i.e. wide scope out of syntactic islands.

Whether a quantifier is topicable or not depends on its lexical semantics. I developed a method to decide whether a quantifier can be interpreted as topical or not which operates exclusively on the lexical semantics of the respective quantifier. If a sensible representative for the entire quantifier that can serve as storage address for the context update can be computed, the quantifier is topicable, otherwise it is not. My mechanism derives the desired classification: singular indefinites, bare numeral indefinites, (plural) universals (and possibly other – what I call – non-exhaustive quantifiers such as einige N (several N) in German and several N in English) are predicted to be topicable quantifiers. This is what we actually observe, as the following example shows. (German left dislocation serves as a topic-marking device for the left-dislocated DP (Frey, 2004b). The arrow indicates that the accent on the succeeding syllable is typically realized as a rising accent.) C. Endriss, Quantificational Topics, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 86, c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2303-2 7,

271

272


a. ↑EIN Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. some horse RP has the bananas eaten

‘Some horse has eaten the bananas.’ b. ↑DREI / ↑EInige Pferde, die haben die Bananen gefressen. three / several horses RP have

c.

the bananas eaten

‘Three / Several horses have eaten the bananas.’ ?? Mindestens drei / ?? Mehr als zwei Pferde, die haben die Bananen three /

at-least

more than two horses RP have

the bananas

gefressen. eaten

d.

??

Genau drei Pferde, die haben die Bananen gefressen.

exactly three horses RP have

the bananas eaten

e. ∗ Kein Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. no

horse RP has the bananas eaten

f. Höchstens drei / ∗ Wenige / ∗ Fast alle Pferde, die haben die ∗

at-most

three / few

/ almost all horses RP have

the

Bananen gefressen. bananas eaten

g. ? Die meisten / ? Alle / ?(?) Viele Pferde, die haben die Bananen the most

/ all

/

many

horses RP have

the bananas

gefressen. eaten

‘Most / All / Many horses have eaten the bananas.’ h. ∗ Jedes / ∗ Fast jedes Pferd, das hat die Bananen gefressen. every / almost every horse RP has the bananas eaten

Furthermore, we observe that exactly these topicable quantifiers allow for exceptional wide scope. The only exception is the universal quantifier, which seems to be unable to take scope out of syntactic islands such as the if -clause in the following example. However, this restriction is only apparent (cf. Beghelli and Stowell, 1997). In fact, universal quantifiers can take collective exceptional wide scope, as can all other topicable quantifiers. As this collective wide scope reading is truth-conditionally equivalent to the narrow scope reading, it often goes unnoticed. (7.2)

a. Clarissa will be surprised if some horse falls ill. [if ≻ ∃] [∃ ≻ if ] b. Clarissa will be surprised if some/ three / several horses fall ill. [if ≻ some/3/several ] [some/3/several ≻ if ] c. Clarissa will be surprised if at least three / more than two horses fall ill. [if ≻ ≥ 3/> 2] ?? [≥ 3/> 2 ≻ if ] d. Clarissa will be surprised if exactly three horses fall ill. [if ≻ = 3] ?? [= 3 ≻ if ] e. Clarissa will be surprised if no horse falls ill. [if ≻ ¬∃] ∗ [¬∃ ≻ if ]

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION

273

f. Clarissa will be surprised if at most three horses / few / almost all horses fall ill. [if ≻ ≤ 3/few /alm all ] ∗ [≤ 3/few /alm all ≻ if ] g. Clarissa will be surprised if most horses fall ill. [if ≻ most] ∗ [most ≻ if ] g’ Clarissa will be surprised if all horses fall ill. [if ≻ all ] [all collective ≻ if ] g” Clarissa will be surprised if many horses fall ill. [if ≻ many] ?? [many ≻ if ] h. Clarissa will be surprised if every / almost every horse falls ill. [if ≻ ∀/alm ∀] ∗ [∀/alm ∀ ≻ if ]

Intermediate scope is only observable in the context of nested topic-comment structures. It is known that exceptional wide scope is not always equivalent to widest scope. One can observe exceptional wide intermediate scope readings, i.e. readings where an indefinite takes wide scope out of a syntactic island and yet is dependent on some c-commanding operator. These intermediate scope readings can be accounted for via nested topic-comment structures. A topical quantifier takes wide scope only with respect to the operator that embeds its topic-comment structure. This view makes the prediction that intermediate scope readings are only expected in the presence of topic-comment structure embedding operators, which I have shown to indeed be the case. (7.3) (Last week, I went to a horse-race every day. It was funny:) a.

#

Alle Pferde haben alle Rennen gewonnen, die an ↑EInem Tag

All horses had

all races

won

that at

one

day

stattfanden. took-place

‘All horses won all races that had taken place on one day.’ b. Von allen Pferden wurde berichtet, sie hätten alle Rennen gewonnen, Of all

horses

was

reported

they had

all races

won

die an ↑EInem Tag stattgefunden hatten. that at

one

day taken-place

had

‘All horses were reported to have won all races that had taken place on one day.’ (7.3a) does not receive an intermediate scope reading, but only a wide scope reading and is hence very odd, because it then means that there was one particular day which was such that all horses won all races on that day. As we know that races are usually won by only one horse, the sentence has no sensible meaning. However, the intermediate scope reading would be a very sensible one, namely that each horse had a lucky day, on which it won all races. Yet, this reading is not available. It only becomes available when a topic-comment structure embedding operator is inserted, e.g. berichten

274


(to report). (7.3b) thus has the intermediate scope reading that for each horse there was one day such that it was reported that the respective horse had won all races of that day.

Establishing a topic is a separate illocutionary act. Building on Jacobs (1984), I have suggested that the act of establishing a topic to be talked about should be taken as an independent frame-setting act. This frame-setting act can fail when the restriction of the topical indefinite is empty. Thus there is no need to postulate an ambiguity between presupposing ‘specific’ indefinites and non-presupposing ‘non-specific’ ones. Only topical (i.e. wide scope) indefinites appear to be presupposing, because only they are introduced in a separate frame-setting act, which can fail. Otherwise, they are simply integrated/semantically incorporated (cf. Strawson, 1964; van Geenhoven, 1998) into the predicative part of the sentence. (7.4)

a. Some even prime which is greater than 2 has less than 5 figures. b. Yesterday, I found an even prime which is greater than 2.

While (7.4a) seems odd or not interpretable, because the indefinite being the subject of the sentence is interpreted as topical, (7.4b) is felt as simply false. These assumptions make very similar predictions to those theories that take ‘specific’ indefinites as presuppositional expressions which can only be resolved via accommodation. My approach derives the same results, but without the rather dubious assumption of accommodation as a default mechanism.

Exceptional wide scope is not pseudoscope. Exceptional wide scope is derived via a scope-shifting mechanism, which sets this approach apart from many other approaches to exceptional wide scope, which argue that exceptional wide ‘scope’ phenomena actually are not scope phenomena at all. In these approaches, it is claimed that exceptional wide scope as a scope phenomenon simply does not exist. Such readings would be instances of pseudoscope and it only seems as if the indefinites involved take wide scope, although, in fact, they do not. I have argued extensively against all approaches of pseudoscope by presenting data that can only be accounted for by a scope-shifting mechanism. It is important to differentiate carefully between topical indefinites, which take genuine wide scope, and other indefinites which only seem to take wide scope. The latter are specific, referentially interpreted, or extremely domain-restricted indefinites. I defined specific indefinites as taking wide scope over an opaque operator and noted that they can be overtly marked by bestimmt in German. Referential indefinites are indefinites that are uttered with a referential intention on the speaker’s side, i.e. the speaker has some individual in mind when uttering the respective indefinite. And extremely domain-restricted indefinites are indefinites that enable the restrictor set to be narrowed down to a singleton set due to contextual reasoning. To argue against such pseudoscope theories and to illustrate the need for a genuine scope-shifting mechanism to account for exceptional wide scope phenomena, it was shown that not all exceptional wide scope readings are instances of speaker’s reference, specificity, or extreme domain restriction. The seminal example against the referentiality view is repeated below.

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION (7.5)

275

a. Imagine a group of people playing a (very strange) game. The rules are as follows: if a certain word that is agreed upon by the group is uttered by one person, everyone has to touch the floor with their hands. The person who touches the floor last has lost. Furthermore, if another word that has been agreed on is mentioned, everyone has to try to eat twenty grapes as quickly as possible. Now Maria enters the scene and asks about the game. Max explains the rules. Then Maria asks back: b. (So we are playing several runs of the game, right?) And for every run, if some word that we agree on beforehand is uttered, we all have to touch the floor as quickly as possible.

In (7.5b), the indefinite some word takes wide scope over the if -clause, i.e. exceptional wide scope out of the if -clause island. The sentence means that for every run, there is one particular word that has been agreed on such that if that word is uttered, everyone has to touch the floor as quickly as possible. It is quite clear that no one knows the referent of some word in (7.5b), because the word under discussion still has to be agreed on, i.e. there is no referent for some word yet. There is furthermore no property that holds for this word apart from the property that it has to be agreed on beforehand and that it is such that if it is uttered, everyone has to touch the floor. Both properties are properties that are already part of the utterance (7.5b) itself. That is, there is no additional identifying property for the particular word. Hence, there is no kind of speaker’s reference involved – neither has the speaker a specific referent in mind nor does she know of a specific property of the indefinite involved – and the only way to account for the reading under discussion is to allow for the possibility that the indefinite takes wide scope over the if -clause. Furthermore, I have shown that sentences containing a topical/wide scope indefinite are judged as true if the existential statement can be made true, even if the speaker is mistaken about the actual value that satisfies the sentence predicate. In this respect, such wide scope indefinites do not behave any differently from simple ‘non-specific’ indefinites. If speaker’s reference was involved in the interpretation of topical indefinites, it would come as a surprise that the individual the speaker has in mind does not play a role for the interpretation of the sentence. I illustrated this by way of examples such as the following. (7.6) Wenn ↑EIN Freund von Peter zur if

some friend

of

Party kommt, ist Maria glücklich.

Peter to-the party comes

is Maria happy

‘If some friend of Peter comes to the party, Mary will be happy.’ (7.6) is true in the case there is some friend of Peter’s such that Maria is happy if he comes to the party. It is irrelevant, however, whom the speaker has in mind. Let us assume that there are two friends of Peter’s, A and B, and Maria is happy only if A comes. If a speaker utters the sentence in (7.6), it is true as said, even if the speaker uttered it with B in mind and thought that Maria would be happy if B came. The speaker said something true, even if only by accident. After all, I conclude that exceptional wide scope cannot be reduced to speaker’s reference. Topical/wide scope indefinites furthermore behave differently from specific ones. Hence, exceptional wide scope has to be distinguished from specificity, too.

276

QUANTIFICATIONAL TOPICS (7.7) Sitzpläne mit den Gästen vorher zu besprechen hat gar keinen Sinn. Discussing a seating plan with the guests beforehand is pointless. will (immer) unbedingt eine bestimmte Person als a. Denn jeder because everybody wants (always) necessarily a

certain

person as


‘Because everybody (always) wants to have a certain person sitting next to him at the table.’ (immer) unbedingt als b. Denn ↑EIne Person, die will jeder because some person RP wants everybody (always) necessarily as


‘Because everybody (always) wants to have one particular person sitting next to him at the table.’ While the topical indefinite in (7.7b) can only take wide scope over the universal, (7.7a), with the specific indefinite, has a prominent reading where the indefinite takes scope over the verb will (want), but not over jeder (everyone). (7.7b) can only mean that everyone wants to sit next to some particular person, say, the party host. (7.7a), on the other hand, is true if there is a specific, but different, person for every guest that the respective guest wants to sit next to. Under my assumptions this is easily explained: topical indefinites such as eine Person (some person) in (7.7b) take wide scope over their topic-comment structure embedding operator, which is the outermost speech act operator, the Assert operator, in this case. The topical indefinite hence takes wide scope over the Assert operator and thus also over the universal jeder (everybody). Specific indefinites such as eine bestimmte Person (a certain person) in (7.7a) on the other hand take wide scope over opaque operators. The specific indefinite in (7.7a) then takes scope above the opaque verb will (want), but below the universal. The third group of approaches deriving pseudoscope readings are the domain restriction approaches. It is also not always plausible to assume that the restrictor set of an indefinite which takes (apparent) exceptional wide scope is restricted to a singleton set. The relevant example is the following. (7.8)

a. Fritz has three relatives. b. If one of them dies, he will inherit a fortune.

(7.8a) introduces a set of three relatives, all members of which are salient after the utterance has been made. (7.8b) supports an exceptional wide scope reading. But it is very implausible to assume that this is due to the fact that the restrictor set them (= the three relatives) is implicitly restricted to contain only one individual. In other words, the exceptional wide scope reading cannot be explained as an instance of extreme domain restriction here. I concluded that none of the three families of pseudoscope approaches can be plausibly assumed to explain all exceptional wide scope phenomena. But apart from the fact that one would be forced to make rather implausible assumptions to account for certain readings when working in the framework of these pseudoscope approaches, one can

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION

277

also show that the approaches cannot account for the full range of data, because they cannot derive genuine intermediate scope readings. They share this problem with the choice function approaches (cf. also Schwarz, 2001a). (7.9) Genau drei Studenten haben angekündigt, die Party sofort exactly three students

have

announced

zu



if

some lecturer comes

‘Exactly three students have announced that they will leave the party immediately, if some lecturer shows up.’ (7.9) lacks a narrow scope reading, but has (at least) three wide/intermediate scope readings. Ignoring the widest scope reading for the moment, there are two intermediate readings: one genuine intermediate scope reading and one functional seemingly intermediate reading, which is in fact a functional wide scope reading. The genuine intermediate scope reading is true if there is one lecturer for each of exactly three students such that the student leaves if the designated teacher comes (but not necessarily if other lecturers show up). This reading is different from a functional wide scope reading, which is true if the three students leave if, say, their supervisor turns up. The functional wide scope reading would be true in the case there are ten students altogether that leave the party if some particular lecturer turns up, as long as only three leave if their supervisors turn up. The intermediate scope reading would be false in such a scenario, because there are more than three students who leave if some particular lecturer appears. All approaches that rely on pseudoscope mechanisms to derive exceptional wide scope cannot account for the non-functional genuine intermediate scope reading. My mechanism accounts for both readings. I differentiate between functional and nonfunctional entities. Most NPs can be reinterpreted as functionally dependent. In the case of (7.9), Dozent (lecturer) is interpreted as relational, i.e. as Dozent von ihm (lecturer of him), in one of its readings. If the functionally dependent DP ein Dozent von ihm (some lecturer of him) receives wide scope, this is a functional wide scope reading where the lecturers vary with the students by way of the functional assignment of lecturers to students, hence an apparent intermediate scope reading. However, to derive the genuine intermediate scope reading, the indefinite has to literally take intermediate scope. Functional topics receive functional wide scope. I have shown that, to account for functional readings correctly, functions have to be restricted to nameable and informative ones, because the representations for functional readings would otherwise have too weak truth conditions, as has also been pointed out by Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984) and Schwarz (2001a). My proposal for the restriction of the domain of possible functions to nameable and informative ones can be read as an attempt to spell out what is usually understood as a natural function. (7.10)

a. No mani hates a woman hei went to school with. b. ∃f [¬∃x[man(x) ∧ hates(x, fx (woman x went to school with))]]

278


It is easy to see that (7.10b) does not represent the correct truth conditions for (7.10a) if no restrictions are imposed on the possible interpretation domain of the functions f . In a model in which it is false that no man hates a woman he went to school with – e.g. in a model where every man hates one woman he went to school with, but likes all others – there exists a function f that maps each man to a woman he actually likes. Hence, it is true that no man hates the woman f assigns to him. The formula can thus be made true, although it should be false. Restricting the possible function domain to nameable and informative functions, the formula in (7.10b) correctly represents the functional wide scope reading of the sentence, which can be reinforced by a continuation such as Namely his first girlfriend from school. I have also shown that functional indefinites in topic positions receive wide scope, just as ordinary (non-functional) topical indefinites do. They thus invoke functional wide scope readings, as is illustrated in the following example in German. (7.11) In einer Schule wollte die Kunstlehrerin mit ihren Schülern eine Collage basteln und bat daher alle Schüler, zur nächsten Kunststunde ein Bild mitzubringen. Am Tag davor erinnerte sie die Kinder noch einmal daran, an alles zu denken, weil normalerweise immer jemand irgendetwas vergisst. Als sie dann zum Kunstunterricht kam, war sie total erstaunt, ... (At school, the arts teacher wanted to make a collage with her pupils and asked each pupil to bring a picture to the next lecture. The day before the arts class she reminded her pupils again not to forget, because usually at least some children forget what they were asked to bring. When the teacher came to the arts lecture, she was surprised, ...) a. denn ↑EIN Bild von sich, das hatte u¨ berraschenderweise jeder because some picture of


every


brought-along

‘because, surprisingly, every pupil had brought a certain picture of himself.’ b. ∃f [picturefn (f ) ∧ ∀x[pupil (x) → bring(x, f (x))]] The context favors a narrow scope reading. Yet, only a functional wide scope reading is available, which is evidenced by the fact that the sentence asks for a continuation along the lines Nämlich das jeweilige Einschulungsbild (Namely a picture of the pupil’s first day at school). Without restricting the functions, the formula in (7.11b) would obviously be equivalent to the narrow scope reading of the sentence. The two restrictions I propose – nameability and informativity – can account for the relevant reading. Indefinite topics are typically realized emphatically. Concerning intonation, topical indefinites in German, i.e. indefinites that take genuine exceptional wide scope, often carry a strong accent on the determiner, which is usually realized as a rising tone. In particular indefinites with simple, non-heavy restrictor sets are realized this way to indicate their topical status. I referred to these indefinites as emphatic indefinites.

CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION (7.12)

279

a. Ich war gestern auf einer Party mit vielen internationalen Gästen und habe mich mit sehr vielen Studenten unterhalten. (I went to a party with many international guests yesterday and talked to many students there.) b. # Verrückterweise kam jeder Student, mit dem ich mich came every student

crazily

with whom I

myself

unterhalten hatte, von einer UNi. talked

had

from a

university

‘Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from a university.’ c. Verrückterweise kam jeder Student, mit dem ich mich unterhalten crazily

came every student

hatte, von ↑EIner Uni. had

from some

with whom I

myself talked

(Nämlich vom MIT.)

university namely

from MIT

‘Oddly enough, every student with whom I had talked was from the same university. (Namely from MIT.)’ The non-emphatic indefinite in (7.12b) cannot be interpreted as taking wide scope, which is why the sentence sounds odd or redundant. (It is known that students must come from some university or other.) In (7.12c), the emphatic variant allows for genuine wide scope and hence the sentence does not convey only redundant information. I have shown that the topical indefinite in (7.12c) can only be interpreted as taking genuine wide scope. No pseudoscope mechanism could account for the wide scope reading in the case at hand.

Appendix A

Technicalities and Experiments A.1

Generalized Quantifiers

A.1.1

Monotonicity

A generalized quantifier G over some domain of entities E is a set of subsets of E (of type hhe, ti , ti). It is called upward monotonic or monotone increasing, iff for all A ∈ G it holds that for all B such that A ⊆ B ⊆ E we have B ∈ G. Similarly, it is called downward monotonic or monotone decreasing, iff for all A ∈ G it holds that for all B such that B ⊆ A ⊆ E we have B ∈ G. If G is neither upward nor downward monotonic, it is called non-monotonic.

A.1.2

Witness Sets

The following definitions follow the ones in (Szabolcsi, 1997b). A set L is a live-on set for a generalized quantifier G if it holds that A ∈ G iff (A ∩ L) ∈ G. A set W is a witness set of G iff W ∈ G and W is a subset of the smallest live-on set of G. Accordingly, a minimal witness set M is a set that is smallest among the witness sets of G. M is a witness set of G ∧ ¬∃M ′ [M ′ ∈ G ∧ M ′ ⊂ M ]

A.1.3

Lexical Quantifier Semantics

In this section I will briefly illustrate what a collective construal of the Kadmonian quantifier semantics could look like. Recall that the underlying lexical semantics for 281

282


modified and unmodified numeral determiners used up to this point was given in (6.11), repeated here as (A.1). (A.1)

n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ]

at least n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

exactly n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

at most n

λP λQ.∃X[ |X| ≤ n ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

As mentioned before, this yields a distributive construal of the quantifiers in question. For instance, a sentence such as At least three students sleep would receive the distributive reading ∃X[ |X| ≥ 3 ∧ X = student ∩ sleep ] where student and sleep are understood as properties of type he, ti. Paraphrased, this reading says that there is a group of three or more individuals such that they constitute those entities that are students and sleeping individuals – in other words, the student and sleeping properties are attributed to each individual, i.e. distributively. To account for collective readings, for instance when the quantifier combines with a collective predicate such as in At least three students met, the lexical semantics in (A.1) needs to be changed accordingly. Let us assume that collective predicates such as meet are of type hhe, ti , ti, i.e. that they denote sets of sets of individuals. Then an appropriate lexical determiner semantics of type hhhe, ti , ti , hhhe, ti , ti , tii would be as follows: (A.2)

n

λP.λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ P (X) ∧ Q(X) ]

at least n

λP.λQ.∃X[ |X| ≥ n ∧ P (X) ∧ Q(X) ∧ exh(X, P, Q) ]

exactly n

λP.λQ.∃X[ |X| = n ∧ P (X) ∧ Q(X) ∧ exh(X, P, Q) ]

at most n

λP.λQ.∃X[ |X| ≤ n ∧ P (X) ∧ Q(X) ∧ exh(X, P, Q) ]

Here exh is a predicate that accounts for the exhaustivity of the quantifier as discussed in Section 6.2.1. It is true of X, P and Q, if X is exhaustive w.r.t. P and Q, i.e. if X is the maximal set in P , which is Q: exh(X, P, Q) ⇔ ¬∃Y [P (Y ) ∧ Q(Y ) ∧ X ⊂ Y ] If distributive predicates such as sleep are still of type he, ti, the combination with such a collective quantifier will yield a type conflict that can be resolved by distribution, i.e. by lifting the distributive predicate to type hhe, ti , ti as exemplified with sleep: λx.sleep(x)

λP.P ⊆ sleep

In this collective construal, a sentence such as At least three students met (where students and met are distributive and collective predicates, respectively) would receive the representation ∃X[ |X| ≥ 3∧X ⊆ students ∧meet(X)∧¬∃Y [Y ⊆ students ∧meet(Y )∧X ⊂ Y ]]

APPENDIX A. TECHNICALITIES AND EXPERIMENTS

283

Paraphrased, this representation says that there is a group of three or more individuals, each of which is a student, such that this is the maximal group of students which met. If both arguments P and Q of the quantifier are distributive predicates of type he, ti, we get the following representation for At least three P Q : ∃X[ |X| ≥ 3 ∧ X ⊆ P ∧ X ⊆ Q ∧ ¬∃Y [Y ⊆ P ∧ Y ⊆ Q ∧ X ⊂ Y ]] ⇔ ⇔

∃X[ |X| ≥ 3 ∧ X ⊆ P ∩ Q ∧ ¬∃Y [Y ⊆ P ∩ Q ∧ X ⊂ Y ]] ∃X[ |X| ≥ 3 ∧ X = P ∩ Q ]

This is exactly the distributive construal in (A.1). Hence, the collective construals in (A.2) are only a conservative adaptation of the distributive semantics to a higher type, which yield the corresponding distributive semantics from (A.1) in the special case where both predicates are distributive.

A.2

Pilot Studies

In this section, I present two pilot studies, which were originally designed as informal initial tests for full-fledged experiments that were to follow. These experiments were carried out in order to test whether certain hypotheses about accent marking were actually borne out and if further investigations were worthwhile. Unfortunately, both times the answer was negative, which is why I did not follow them up with further experiments.1

A.2.1

The Accent Pattern of Wide Scope Indefinites

The first pilot study2 was intended to investigate the accent pattern of (exceptional) wide scope readings. We know that a wide scope indefinite often carries a strong accent on the determiner. This accent was to be compared to other kinds of accents, namely to focus accents and accents indicating partial topics. My hypothesis was that partial topics and wide scope accents are realized quite similarly, while focal accents are different. The actual experiment design I chose was adapted from a general proposal by Daniel Büring for a method of how to test for information-structural categories. He presented this method in a talk in Potsdam, October 12th 2002, where he suggested the following: 1. Construct contexts that elicit a certain information structure for the target item. 2. Find a way to record speakers pronouncing the target items in the respective contexts. 3. Exchange the target items among each other so that the contexts do not necessarily fit with the target items, i.e. recombine the contexts with the target items. 4. Find subjects to judge the naturalness of the recombined texts. In my experiment, I used this method. I designed several mini-texts, which each came in three variants. These three variants all contained one target sentence. But the text around this target sentence was different in the three variants such that each text elicited 1 Yet, I would like to express my gratitude towards Frank K¨ ugler and Edmund Pohl for spending many hours in the sound insulation cabinet of the phonetics lab in Potsdam and for last-minute help in analyzing the results of these pilot studies. 2 I would like to thank Robin H¨ ornig and Thomas Weskott for their help with the design of the experiment.

284


a different reading of the target sentence. There was one partial topic context, one focus context and one wide scope context. Consider the following example. (A.3)

a. 1. Clarissa ist ein 19-jähriges Mädchen und stammt aus einer großen Familie. Seit einem Jahr wohnt sie nun in Heidelberg. Und am Samstag will sie dort ihre erste richtige Party feiern. (Clarissa is a 19-year-old girl and comes from a big family. She has been living in Heidelberg for a year now. On Saturday, she wants to give her first real party.) 2. Wenn ZWEI ihrer Schwestern zur Party kämen, würde sie if

two

sich

freuen.

of-her sisters

to-the party would-come would she

herself be-happy

‘If two of her sisters came to her party, she would be really happy.’ 3. Die beiden heißen Miriam und Anne. Und Clarissa hat schon seit jeher ein besonders enges Verhältnis zu ihnen. (They are called Miriam and Anne. And Clarissa has been very close with them ever since.) b. 1. Clarissa ist ein 19-jähriges Mädchen und stammt aus einer großen Familie. Seit einem Jahr wohnt sie nun in Heidelberg. Und am Samstag will sie dort ihre erste richtige Party feiern. (Clarissa is a 19-year-old girl and comes from a big family. She has been living in Heidelberg for a year now. On Saturday, she wants to give her first real party.) 2. Wenn ZWEI ihrer Schwestern zur Party kämen, würde sie if

two

sich

freuen.

of-her sisters


herself be-happy

‘If two of her sisters came to her party, she would be really happy.’ 3. Aber mehr müssten es nicht unbedingt sein. Drei wären ihr fast schon ein bisschen zu viel. (But two are about ok. Three might already be too many for her.) c. 1. Clarissa ist ein 19-jähriges Mädchen und stammt aus einer großen Familie. Seit einem Jahr wohnt sie nun in Heidelberg. Und am Samstag will sie dort ihre erste richtige Party feiern. Sie hat fünf Schwestern. (Clarissa is a 19-year-old girl and comes from a big family. She has been living in Heidelberg for a year now. On Saturday, she wants to give her first real party. She has five sisters.) würde sie 2. Wenn ZWEI ihrer Schwestern zur Party kämen, if

two

sich

freuen.

of-her sisters


herself be-happy

‘If two of her sisters came to her party, she would be really happy.’ 3. Denn dann ist Stimmung garantiert, so glaubt sie. (Then the party will be a success, she believes.)


285

The target sentence is given in (2) in the (a)-, (b), and (c)-variants. The text in (A.3a) enforces a wide scope reading of the indefinite, (A.3b) represents a (contrastive) focusinducing context, and in (A.3c), the indefinite zwei ihrer Schwestern (two of her sisters) is a partial topic. I had a speaker read these three texts. Afterwards the target sentences in the three texts were exchanged among each other. This I did with altogether six such triplets. I then presented the manipulated and unmanipulated mini-texts to four subjects. Spontaneously, none of my subjects judged any of the mini-texts as particularly unnatural. When forced to make judgments on the naturalness of the presented mini-texts, they seemed to perform pure guessing. At least I could not recognize any pattern. Clearly, the initial hypothesis was not confirmed. It seemed that the accents used by the speaker to indicate a partial topic, a focus, or a wide scope reading, respectively, could be freely exchanged for one another. Hence, I refrained from running a full-fledged experiment on this topic.

A.2.2

Wide Scope vs. ‘Anti-Distributivity’

My second pilot study sought to investigate the question of whether the difference between genuine wide scope readings and ‘anti-distributivity’ readings, which both seem to necessitate a strong accent on the determiner of the simple (i.e. unmodified) indefinites involved, is reflected in the nature of the accent. Below, I give an example of the data I was concerned with. (A.4) Wenn Fritz und Frank durch EIne Tür gehen, gewinnen sie den if

Fritz and Frank through one door go

win

they the

Hauptgewinn. first prize

‘If Fritz and Frank go through one (and the same door), they will win the first prize.’ (A.4) is ambiguous between a wide scope reading for the indefinite and what I call an anti-distributivity reading. It has to be read as if it were uttered by a game master of a game show. There are three doors. Fritz and Frank are each asked to walk through one of the doors separately, but they cannot see what the other one is doing. Under the wide scope reading, they win if, by chance, they both walk through one particular door – the winning door. And under the anti-distributivity reading, they win if they walk through the same door, no matter which one.3 My hope was to find a difference in the realization of the accents on the determiner for the wide scope and the anti-distributivity reading. The informal pilot study was to serve the purpose of testing whether the difference I was looking for could possibly be confirmed in a first step. Unfortunately, the result was negative. The pilot study involved one speaker on the production side and five subjects on the perception side. On the production side, I found that the speaker produced the accents for 3 Note that the readings are not independent. Rather the wide scope reading implies the anti-distributivity reading. I assume that this is irrelevant for the point. See also footnote 15 of Chapter 3.

286


the different readings inconsistently. I could find both falling as well as rising accents, which were to indicate genuine wide scope readings. On the perception side, I found no relevant correspondence between what had been intended as wide scope readings/anti-distributivity readings by the speaker and what was identified as wide scope readings/anti-distributivity readings by the hearers, respectively. I designed my pilot study as follows. A speaker was confronted with a written sentence along the lines of example (A.4). I pointed out the two possible readings. The speaker was then asked to utter the sentence two times, once with the wide scope reading in mind and once with the anti-distributivity reading in mind. Figure A.1 (at the end of this appendix) shows the pitch tracks of the two readings of (A.4) in direct comparison. The first pitch track illustrates what was intended as the wide scope reading and the second one what was intended to be the anti-distributivity reading. The framed part corresponds to the relevant part of the sentence, which is the accent on the determiner of the indefinite. If we compare the two variants, it can easily be seen that both realizations – the one that was intended as the wide scope reading and the one that was intended as the anti-distributivity reading – involve a falling accent. There seems to be no significant difference between the two variants concerning their intonation. Figure A.2 represents the pitch tracks for the sentence (A.5) Wenn Bine und Oli in EInem Hotel schlafen müssen, gibt es auf jeden Fall if

Bine and Oli in one

hotel sleep

must

give it on every case

¨ Arger. trouble

‘If Bine and Oli have to sleep in one (and the same) hotel, there will be trouble.’ Again, the first diagram represents the intended wide scope reading, the second the anti-distributivity reading. We observe again that the relevant accent on the determiner is falling in both variants. But consider now Figure A.3, which is based on the following example. (A.6) Immer wenn Peter und Maria in EInem Auto sitzen, drückt Peter always when Peter and Maria in one

car

sit

pushes Peter

besonders aufs Gas. particularly on-the gas

‘When Peter and Maria sit in one (and the same) car, Peter speeds particularly fast.’ Here, the relevant accent on the determiner is realized as a rising tone for the wide scope reading4 (which is represented by the first diagram) and as a falling one for the anti-distributivity reading (which is given in the second diagram). I take the fact that the speaker sometimes realized a wide scope reading with a falling accent on the determiner and sometimes with a rising one as a first indication that there is no relevant interdependence between the accent on the determiner and the interpretation of the sentence as representing a wide scope reading or an anti-distributivity reading. 4 In the diagram, it may not be obvious that the accent is actually a rising one. However, as Frank K¨ ugler pointed out to me, the prosodic shape of the entire utterance shows that it is indeed a rising pattern and that there is an error in the measurement that makes it look like a falling one.


287

200

Pitch (Hz)

150

100

70

50

0

3.59619 Time (s)

200

Pitch (Hz)

150

100

70

50

0

3.84059 Time (s)

Figure A.1: Wenn Fritz und Frank durch EIne Tür gehen, gewinnen sie den Hauptgewinn.

288


200

Pitch (Hz)

150

100

70

50

0

4.9229 Time (s)

200

Pitch (Hz)

150

100

70

50

0

4.50395 Time (s)

Figure A.2: Wenn Bine und Oli in EInem Hotel schlafen müssen, gibt es auf jeden Fall ¨ Arger.


289

200

Pitch (Hz)

150

100

70

50

0

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200

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150

100

70

50

0

4.36427 Time (s)

Figure A.3: Immer wenn Peter und Maria in einem Auto sitzen, drückt Peter besonders aufs Gas.

290


On the perception side, I designed pictures representing the wide scope and the antidistributivity readings, respectively. For each sentence, the subjects were shown these two pictures while listening to two (sometimes three) different versions of the sentence: the one that was originally designed to be the wide scope one by the speaker, the one originally designed as the anti-distributivity one and possibly a third version where the relevant accent was realized as a rising one, if the speaker had not originally uttered the wide scope reading with a rising accent on the determiner. The subjects were then asked to judge for each sentence which picture they believed the sentence describes. I found absolutely no correspondences between intended and perceived readings or falling/rising accents and certain readings.

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Index absorption, 145 abstraction, 228 accent fall-rise accent, 46 focal accent, 7 rising accent, 46 topical accent, 7, 44–47 accommodation, see presupposition antitopic, 20 attitude verbs, 58, 163 attributive use, 62, 73 background, 2 backward anaphora, 51 bridge accent, 44 cataphora, see backward anaphora categorical sentence, 20 choice function, 152–165 closest world semantics, 109, 154 co-variation reading, 70 collective reading, 110, 111, 154, 228–233, 237 comment, 2 conditional, 109, 142, 153 context set, 26 contrastivity, 35–37, 40–43, 196 contrastive topic, 3, 44–47 de dicto reading, 62 de re reading, 61, 163 discourse configurational languages, 50–51 distributive reading, 110, 111, 155, 228–233 domain restriction, 133–138 extreme domain restriction, 73 Donald Duck problem, 153, 217

exceptional wide intermediate scope readings, see intermediate scope readings exceptional wide scope, see wide scope readings exhaustivity, 222, 228 (non-)exhaustive quantifier, 13, 220–224, 227, 240 existential closure, 156 extraposition, 44 focus, 2 focus operator, 5, 220 formal movement, 36 functional topic, see topic generalized quantifier, 6, 222, 281 generic interpretation, 187 genericity, 204 GQ, see generalized quantifier hanging topic, 37–39 hat contour, 44, 46 implicit domain restriction, 73 in situ, 134, 152, 161, 165 incorporation, 146 indefinite, 5 emphatic indefinite, 75, 105 partitive indefinite, 64, 136 slim indefinite, 75, 105, 162 wide scope indefinite, see quantifier information structure, 1–4 informativity, 94–95, 105 intermediate scope readings, 118, 137, 249–260 island, 8, 9, 70 left dislocation, 37–40 305

306 material implication, 109, 142, 153, 154 minimal witness set, 225, 236, 243, 281 nameability, 93–94, 105 nämlich-continuations, 98 narrow scope readings, 16, 70 natural functions, 88, 90–95 non-variation reading, 70 nuclear scope, 6 opacity, 57, 58, 63, 66, 132, 204 pair-lists, 89, 90, 94, 160 partial topic, see topic partitivity, 64, 136, 199 presupposition, 97, 138–151 accommodation, 139, 150, 151 failure, 255, 256, 269 projection, 139, 151 pseudoscope, 16, 72 Q-adverb, see quantificational adverb QR, see quantifier raising quantificational adverb, 5, 187 quantificational determiner, 6 quantificational variability, 5, 187, 193 quantifier, see also generalized quantifier topicable quantifier, 34 weak quantifier, 5 wide scope quantifier, 9, 112–114 quantifier raising, 70 QV, see quantificational variability referential use, 62, 72 restrictor, 6 rheme, 2 scope phenomena, 16 second occurrence focus, 3 semantic referent, 72 singleton indefinite, 134 singleton set, 73 speaker’s intention, 61, 123

INDEX speaker’s reference, 57, 72, 118–133 speaker-hearer asymmetry, 118, 124, 134, 138 specificity, 57–69, 129, 130 storage address, 26 strong interpretation, 187 structured meanings, 233 theme, 2 thetic sentence, 20 topic, 2 aboutness topic, 20–21, 189, 196 discourse topic, 19 familiarity topic, 21–23 functional topic, 260–268 indefinite topic, 23–26 partial topic, 3, 199, 211 sentence topic, 19–56 Topic Assert, 245 Topic Condition, 238–239 topic marking devices, 29–51 intonational, 44–47 morphological, 47–50 syntactic, 32–44 topic occurrence principle, 188 topic tests, see topic marking devices topicable, 8 topicality, 19–56, see also topic topicalization, 37 transparent context, 57, 58 underspecification, 71 unselective binding, 153 wa-marker, 47–50 wide scope readings, 69–85 apparent, 11, 70–74 exceptional, 8–10, 107–185 functional, 67, 86–88, 94, 99, 103, 105, 130, 137, 138, 172, 176, 177, 260 genuine, 11, 69–70, 74–83 witness set, 225, 226, 281

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