Anna Szabolcsi

THE POSSESSOR THAT RAN AWAY FROM HOME

I will argue that NP in Hungarian is S-like in that it has an INFL and a peripheral position. It is a matter of debate these days whether Hungarian is configurational at the S-level, see E. Kiss (1981, 1982) and Horvath (1981). My analysis of the possessive NP does not crucially hinge on that question since this category is undoubtedly configurational; nevertheless, at least one technical and one intuitive aspect of it will be seen to score a point for the non-configurational hypothesis.

Ways of scope taking

Preface. Introduction. 1. Background Notions in Lattice Theory and Generalized Quantifiers A. Szabolcsi. 2. Variation, Distributivity, and the Illusion of Branching F. Beghelli, et al. 3. Distributivity and Negation: The Syntax of Each and Every F. Beghelli, T. Stowell. 4. Strategies for Scope Taking A. Szabolcsi. 5. Computing Quantifier Scope E.P. Stabler. 6. Evaluation Indices and Scope D.F. Farkas. 7. Weak Islands and an Algebraic Semantics for Scope Taking A. Szabolcsi, F. Zwarts. 8. The Semantics of Event-Related Readings: A Case for Pair- Quantification J. Doetjes, M. Honcoop. 9. Quantifiers in Pair-List Readings A. Szabolcsi. 10. The Syntax of Distributivity and Pair-List Readings F. Beghelli. 11. Questions and Generalized Quantifiers J. Gutierrez Rexach. Author Index. Subject Index.

Strategies for Scope Taking

Standard theories of scope are semantically blind. They employ a single logicosyntactic rule of scope assignment (quantifying in, Quantifier Raising, storage, or type change, etc.) which roughly speaking “prefixes” an expression a to a domain D and thereby assigns scope to it over D, irrespective of what α means, and irrespective of what operator β may occur in D: (1) The semantically blind rule of scope assignment:

COMPOSITIONALITY IN FOCUS

\alpha \left[ {_D \ldots \beta \ldots } \right] \Rightarrow \alpha

Quantifiers in Pair-List Readings

scopes over β There are two basic ways in which (1) turns out to be incorrect: the resulting interpretation may be incoherent, or the resulting interpretation may be coherent but not available for the string it is assigned to.

Variation, Distributivity, and the Illusion of Branching

Modifying the descriptive and theoretical generalizations of Relativized Minimality, we argue that a significant subset of weak island violations arise when an extracted phrase should scope over some intervener but is unable to. Harmless interveners seem harmless because they can support an alternative reading. This paper focuses on why certain wh-phrases are poor wide scope takers, and offers an algebraic perspective on scope interaction. Each scopal element SE is associated with certain operations (e.g., not with complements). When a wh-phrase scopes over some SE, the operations associated with that SE are performed in its denotation domain. The requisite operations may or may not be available in a domain, however. We present an empirical analysis of a variety of wh-phrases. It is argued that the wh-phrases that escape all weak islands (i.e., can scope over any intervener) are those that range over individuals, the reason being that all Boolean operations are defined for their domain. Collectives, manners, amounts, numbers, etc. all denote in domains with fewer operations and are thus selectively sensitive to scopal interveners—a “semantic relativized minimality effect”.

Quantifier Words and Their Multi-functional(?) Parts

(2) a. Sentences are composed by putting their constituents together step by step, with no subsequent rearrangement; b. Not only each lexical item but also each rule of composition is assigned an explicit interpretation; c. Interpretation is given in terms of model theory: the denotation conditions of expressions are defined relative to a mathematical construct which, loosely speaking, models the relevant aspects of the world talked about.^

Background Notions in Lattice Theory and Generalized Quantifiers

The focus of this paper is the syntax of inverse scope in Hungarian, a language that largely disambiguates quantifier scope at Spell–Out. Inverse scope is attributed to alternate orderings of potentially large chunks of structure, but with appeal to base–generation, as opposed to non–feature–driven movement as in Kayne 1998. The proposal is developed within mirror theory and conforms to the assumption that structures are antisymmetrical. The paper also develops a matching notion of scope in terms of featural domination, as opposed to c–command, and applies it to otherwise problematic cases of pied piping. Finally, the interaction of different quantifier types is examined, and the patterns are explained invoking morphological considerations on one hand and A′–reconstruction on the other.