Open AccessFocus structure and the referential status of indefinite quantificational expressions
Author(s) -
Carsten Breul
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.23.2001.111
Subject(s) - focus (optics) , quantifier (linguistics) , syntax , scope (computer science) , linguistics , ambiguity , raising (metalworking) , computer science , covert , generative grammar , natural language processing , expression (computer science) , artificial intelligence , mathematics , philosophy , programming language , geometry , physics , optics
Many authors who subscribe to some version of generative syntax account for the two readings of [...] sentences [...] in terms of LF-ambiguity. There is assumed to be covert quantifier raising (QR), which results in two distinct possibilities for the indefinite quantificational expressions involved to take scope over each other [...] In this paper, an alternative account is proposed which dispenses with the idea that there are different scope relations involved in the readings of […] sentences [...] and, consequently, with QR as the syntactic operation to be assumed for generating the respective LFs. I argue that it is rather focus structure in connection with type semantic issues pertaining to the indefinite quantificational expressions involved which result in the different readings associated with [...] sentences.