An investigation of numeral quantifiers in English

There exist a broad range of theories which model quantifier scope (Ruys & Winter 2011). The empirical coverage and predictions of three theories: Quantifier Raising (May 1985) with Scope Economy (Fox 2000), Feature Checking (Beghelli & Stowell 1997), and Choice Functions ( Winter 1997) are tested using a sentence-picture verification task. Speakers rated the quality of sentences with bare and modified numeral quantifiers in surface and inverse scope conditions. In Experiment 1, it was discovered that bare numerals marginally resisted inverse scope, contra the predictions of (Beghelli & Stowell 1997). Experiment 2 revealed that the scope of numerals is clause-bound, in argument against the theory of Choice Functions which predict extra-clausal scope for existential quantifiers. The results suggest that a modified QR theory best accounts for the observed data.