Split-scope definites: Relative superlatives and Haddock descriptions

Inverse Linking, Possessive Weak Definites and Haddock Descriptions: A Unified Dependent Type Account

“…As with the previous cases of ILCs and PDs, HDs have been observed to be ambiguous between absolute readings (with the standard unproblematic uniqueness requirements that there be exactly one hat, with exactly one rabbit in it) and Haddocktype relative readings (Bumford 2017). Again, we propose that the two readings of HDs derive from the two surface structures (analogous to the previous ones postulated independently by Zimmermann and Barker for ILCs and PDs, respectively): On the absolute reading (AR), the hat is interpreted as the strong definite:…”

“…Specifically, we propose that the three readings under consideration have the same underlying surface structure [introduced and independently motivated in Zimmermann (2002) and Barker (2005)], and that the surface structure postulated can be interpreted properly and compositionally using dependent types. Other directly compositional (non-movement) accounts of the phenomena in question have been proposed [for inverse linking, see Hendriks (1993); Barker (2002); for possessive weak definites, see Löbner (1985); Barker and Shan (2014); for Haddock definites, see Haddock (1987); Bumford (2017)]. However, to the best of our knowledge, our proposal is the first to formally connect the three phenomena.…”

“…In Champollion and Sauerland's movement analysis (Champollion and Sauerland 2011), the rabbit in the hat presupposes that the number of hats that contain exactly one rabbit is exactly one. In Bumford's dynamic account (Bumford 2017), the rabbit in the hat has a stronger presupposition that the number of hats that contain at least one rabbit is exactly one. Under the former analysis the rabbit in the hat can be used felicitously in the context in which one hat contains one rabbit and another hat contains two rabbits, while under the latter analysis the use of the description is infelicitous in this context (since it has three rabbit-hat pairs).…”

“…The head nominal rabbit combines with the in-phrase resulting in the type/set of rabbits in the hat; the DET the requires that this set be a singleton-thus we get Bumford's absolute reading saying that there is exactly one hat, with exactly one rabbit in it. The relative reading (corresponding to the (RR)-structure) comes in two variants: Champollion and Sauerland's reading (Champollion and Sauerland 2011) and Bumford's variant (Bumford 2017). Under our analysis, the head nominal rabbit undergoes a 'sortal-to-relational' shift and is modeled accordingly as the dependent type: The complex DP the rabbit in the hat is interpreted as the complex quantifier living on Σ h:H R(h) .…”

“…This paper focuses on three types of complex DPs: inverse linking constructions (May 1978(May , 1985Larson 1985;Zimmermann 2002;Kobele 2010), possessive definite descriptions (Löbner 1985(Löbner , 2011Poesio 1994;Barker 2005;Peters and Westerståhl 2013) and Haddock descriptions (Haddock 1987;Champollion and Sauerland 2011;Sailer 2014;Bumford 2017). Inverse linking constructions, e.g., a representative of every country, allow the inversely linked interpretation in which the embedded quantifier phrase (every country) takes scope over the embedding one (a representative).…”