Mark Steedman. “Scope Alternation and the Syntax-Semantics Interface”:ftp://ftp.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/pub/steedman/quantifiers/journal3.pdf, (2003), Draft 3.1, July 2003, for comments. (This paper replaces an unpublished version circulated under the earlier title “Syntactic Constraints on Quantifier Scope Alternation”)
bq. Abstract Ambiguities arising from alternations of scope in interpretations for multiply quantified sentences have led to proposals for quantifier movement at logical form, equivalent abstraction or storage mechanisms, scope underspecification, or proliferating type-changing operations. Such devices compromise the strong assumptions of syntactic/semantic transparency and monotonicity underlying the Frege-Montague approach to the theory of grammar. The paper examines some interactions of scope alternation with syntactic phenomena including coordination, binding, and word-order and information structure in English, Dutch, and German. Starting from the assumption that many expressions that have been treated as generalized quantifiers are in fact referential expressions, and using Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG) as a framework, the paper presents an account of quantifier scope ambiguities in which all and only the available readings follow directly from the combinatorics of surface syntactic derivation.
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This entry was posted by fintel on Wednesday, July 30th, 2003, at 11:58 am.
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