German Perfect sentences with durational phrases are (often) ambiguous between a universal (or 'u') and an existential (or 'e') reading. There are two different kinds of this u/e-ambiguity: a complex and a simple one, cf. also the article of Iatridou et al. in this volume. Let us start with the complex u/e-ambiguity. Cf. the following examples and the corresponding illustrations: (1) complex u/e-ambiguity: bis ('until') and seit ('since') (1 example: John ist bis/ seit gestern im Garten gewesen. John is until/ since yesterday in garden been 'John was in the garden until/?since yesterday.' u-reading: There is a time that ended/ started in yesterday, and John was in the garden throughout that time e-reading: There is a time that ended/ started in yesterday, and J. was in the garden at least once during that time (2) u-reading of): yesterday u bis-interval = be-in-garden-interval (3) e-reading of (1): yesterday u bis-interval ⊃ be-in-garden-interval 'At least 20 people have been killed since Monday during fights.'
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