Quantifier Scope Ambiguities

Abstract

Sentences containing quantifiers are often ambiguous, as quantificational DPs interact with one another, and with wh ‐phrases, negation, and adverbials. This kind of ambiguity is an ambiguity with respect to the scope of the quantifiers. However, sentences containing several quantifiers or operators are not always scope ambiguous: compare, for example, the ambiguous Some of us always showed up with the unequivocal Always, some of us showed up . Thus, the scope of quantifiers is not essentially free; there is a complex pattern of ambiguous and unequivocal sentences containing quantifiers and operators. An adequate analysis of scope ambiguities should be able to predict this complex pattern in a principled way, which should encompass a sensible view of the interface between syntax and semantics. According to the dominant view in generative grammar, scope relations can be deduced from the c‐command relations on Logical Form, where quantifiers are assigned scope by quantifier raising. Variants of and alternatives to this dominant view have been proposed, for some partly motivated by the scope facts in languages other than English (in particular, Mandarin Chinese and Hungarian have been taken into consideration), and for some partly motivated by a more thorough look at the (English) data and/or by modification or substitution of the basic framework. It became apparent that quantifier scope relations crucially depend on certain properties of the quantifiers, whose exact nature is not yet settled, however. The interplay of these properties seems to determine the complex pattern of ambiguous and unequivocal sentences containing quantifiers and operators. The challenge is to uncover the nature of these scope‐relevant properties and account for their interplay within a general conception of the interface between syntax and semantics.

Characteristics of quantifiers moderate the framing effect

“…Explanations such as the affective encoding account posit that people's judgements are consistent with the valence of the attribute (e.g., positive for 75% lean and negative for 25% fat). However, this explanation does not sufficiently take into account the role quantifiers may play in modifying the attributes they are attached to (Kiss & Pafel, 2017). For instance, one would expect the magnitude of a quantifier to affect the overall valence of the framing sentence and an item that is 5% fat would be perceived more positively than an item that is 25% fat.…”

Characteristics of quantifiers moderate the framing effect

“…Quantifiers play an important role in modifying one's perception of an attribute (Kiss & Pafel, 2017). Using synonyms of relative positive or negative valence to maintain the same quantifier across frames, we found that the magnitude of quantifiers consistently interacted with the synonym's valence.…”

“…Explanations such as the affective encoding account posit that people's judgements are consistent with the valence of the attribute (e.g., positive for 75% lean and negative for 25% fat). However, this explanation does not sufficiently take into account the role quantifiers may play in modifying the attributes they are attached to (Kiss & Pafel, 2017). For instance, one would expect the magnitude of a quantifier to affect the overall valence of the framing sentence and an item that is 5% fat would be perceived more positively than an item that is 25% fat.…”

On Sinhala subject case marking and A-movement

“…Below we present additional evidence against this alternative analysis of the total negation reading in (20). First, notice that, unlike the English counterparts, the Sinhala sentences in (28) and (29) This scope-rigidity property has been found in various SOV languages like Japanese, Hindi/Urdu, Persian, and Hungarian (see Karimi, 2005;Kidwai, 2000;Kiss, 2006). For instance, the inverse scope reading is not available in the Persian sentence (30) nor in the Japanese sentence (31).…”