Q-Adverbs as Selective Binders: The Quantificational Variability of Free Relatives and Definite DPs

300 Pages·2008·0.9 MB·English

by  Hinterwimmer

Q-Adverbs as Selective Binders
≥
Interface Explorations 14
Editors
Artemis Alexiadou
T. Alan Hall
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
Q-Adverbs as Selective Binders
The Quantificational Variability
of Free Relatives and Definite DPs
by
Stefan Hinterwimmer
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
MoutondeGruyter(formerlyMouton,TheHague)
isaDivisionofWalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,Berlin.
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Hinterwimmer,Stefan,1972(cid:2)
Q-adverbsasselectivebinders:thequantificationalvariabilityof
freerelativesanddefiniteDPs/byStefanHinterwimmer.
p.cm.(cid:2)(Interfaceexplorations;14)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-3-11-019629-0(cloth:alk.paper)
1.Grammar,Comparativeandgeneral(cid:2)Quantifiers. 2.Gram-
mar,Comparativeandgeneral(cid:2)Adverbials. 3.Definiteness(Lin-
guistics) 4. Grammar, Comparative and general (cid:2) Relative
clauses. 5.Semantics. I.Title.
P299.Q3H56 2008
415(cid:2)dc22
2008018243
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ISBN 978-3-11-019629-0
ISSN 1861-4167
”Copyright2008byWalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,10785Berlin
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Acknowledgments
This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis at the Humboldt-
Universität zu Berlin. First, I would like to thank my two supervisors, Man-
fred Krifka and Peter Staudacher. I learned a lot from their comments and
suggestions during the many hours of inspiring discussions we had on the
topics dealt with in this book, and without their advice and support I would
never have come this far.
I am indebted to Cornelia Endriss, my former colleague in the project A2 of
the SFB 632 Information Structure, with whom I collaborated on various
topics related to this work, which resulted in some co-authored publica-
tions. I benefited greatly from the many detailed discussions I had with her
(mostly over coffee at Starbucks) as well as with Andreas Haida and
Sophie Repp (mostly during or after lunch) and my former officemate
Malte Zimmermann (all over the day). Furthermore, I would like to thank
the following people for helpful comments, suggestions and judgements at
various stages of this work: Sigrid Beck, Richard Breheny, Daniel Büring,
Ivano Caponigro, Greg Carlson, Ariel Cohen, Christian Ebert, Regine Eck-
ardt, Caroline Fery, Werner Frey, Hans-Martin Gärtner, Alex Grosu,
Katharina Hartmann, Irene Heim, Roland Hinterhölzl, Thomas Holder,
Robin Hörnig, Hans Kamp, Graham Katz, Angelika Kratzer, Fred Land-
man, Jens Michaelis, Friederike Moltmann, Kimiko Nakanishi, Pauline
Jacobson, Orin Percus, Chris Potts, Tanya Reinhart, Maribel Romero,
Douglas Saddy, Philippe Schlenker, Roger Schwarzschild, Uli Sauerland,
Thomas Weskott, Ede Zimmermann.
I have to thank Brigitte Asbach-Schnitker for getting me interested in lin-
guistics in the first place, Herbert Brekle for getting me interested in se-
mantics, and Helmut Weiß for getting me interested in syntax.
I am grateful to Christian Krause for technical help in preparing the manu-
script and proof-reading.
I thankfully acknowledge the support of the Collaborative Research Centre
SFB 632 Information Structure, funded by the German Science Foundation
DFG. I would also like to thank the people at Mouton de Gruyter: Artemis
Alexiadou and Tracy Alan Hall, the editors of the Interface Explorations
vi Acknowledgments
series, for their willingness to publish this book; Ursula Kleinhenz, for her
support and for her patience during the publication process, and Wolfgang
Konwitschny for editorial assistance at the final stage.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family, in particular
my wife Katharina, my parents Ursula and Fritz and my sisters Brigitte and
Christine, for their constant support, and my daughter Lenya for her crea-
tive energy that greatly inspired me during the last stages of this project.
This book is dedicated to them.
Stefan Hinterwimmer
Berlin
May, 2008
Contents
Acknowledgments v
Introduction 1
Chapter 1
Quantificational Variability Effects in Sentences with Free
Relatives 9
1. Syntactic Properties of FRs 10
2. Semantic Properties of FRs 22
2.1. Semantic arguments for analysing FRs as definite DPs 22
2.2. Semantic arguments for analysing FRs as indefinites 27
2.2.1. The problem of quantificational variability 27
2.2.2. Further arguments for analysing FRs as indefinites 37
3. QVEs as the By-Product of Quantification over Minimal
Situations 45
3.1. Dayal’s (1995) basic suggestion 45
3.2. The basics of situation semantics 46
3.3. FRs, definite DPs and situation semantics 53
3.3.1. A comparison between the behaviour of FRs and singu-
lar definites in adverbially quantified sentences 54
3.3.2. Can the uniqueness/maximality condition associated
with the definite determiner be relativized with respect
to the situations quantified over by Q-adverbs? 61
4. Chapter Summary 65
Chapter 2
The Case of Singular Definites and Universally Quantified
DPs 69
1. Introduction: Singular Definites in Sentences with Q-
Adverbs 69
viii Contents
1.1. A recapitulation of the basic problem 69
1.2. A failed attempt to account for QVEs in adverbially
quantified sentences with definites: The approach of
Graff (2001) 70
1.3. A brief sketch of how the observed constraints can be
accounted for 74
2. Q-Adverbs and Universally Quantified DPs 77
2.1. The phenomenon of implicit restrictions 77
2.2. The available readings 82
2.3. The role of contextual clues in licensing the co-varying
reading 91
2.4. Are co-varying readings also possible if the universally
quantified DPs are interpreted in the restriction of the Q-
adverbs? 98
2.5. A comparison to Beghelli and Stowell (1997) 105
2.6. Section Summary 109
3. QVEs in Sentences with Singular Definites 109
3.1. Contextual Licensing 109
3.2. Contrastive topicality as a clue that makes available co-
varying interpretations of singular definites 121
3.2.1. The behaviour of contrastive topics with respect to the
mapping algorithm in general 123
3.2.1.1. Krifka (1998) on contrastive topics 124
3.2.1.2. Evidence for a real ambiguity: The existence of two
different readings in sentences with proper names as
contrastive topics 125
3.2.2. The final analysis of QVE in sentences with singular
definites marked as contrastive topics 134
4. A New Mapping Algorithm 142
4.1. The basic problem repeated 142
4.2. The role of word order and intonation in adverbially
quantified sentences with indefinites 144
4.3. The role of word order and intonation in adverbially
quantified sentences with singular definites or univer-
sally quantified DPs 147
4.3.1. The situation in English 147
4.3.2. The situation in German 155
4.4. The interpretation of adverbially quantified sentences
with topical indefinites 164
Contents ix
5. Chapter Summary 177
Chapter 3
QVEs in Sentences with FRs or Plural Definites 183
1. Word Order and Intonation 184
1.1. The basic facts 184
1.2. The LF representations of adverbially quantified sen-
tences with FRs 191
1.2.1. Sentences where the FR gets mapped onto the nuclear
scope 191
1.2.2. Sentences where the FR gets mapped onto the restriction 193
1.3. Two failed attempts 197
1.3.1. Quantification over situations containing a realization of
the kind denoted by the FR 198
1.3.2. The second attempt: Quantification over the atomic parts
of the plural individual denoted by the FR 204
2. How Tense Affects Adverbial Quantification 208
2.1. Some data 208
2.2. Conceivable solution strategies 212
2.2.1. Greenberg’s (2002, 2003) restrictions regarding generic
readings of sentences with singular indefinites 212
2.2.2. Specificity? 215
2.3. A pragmatic account 215
2.3.1. Preliminaries 215
2.3.2. The interval resolution strategy 216
2.3.2.1. Quantification over individuals 218
2.3.2.2. Quantification over situations 222
2.4. Explicit interval setting 228
2.5. Interval resetting induced by presuppositions 230
2.6. Causally related situations 233
2.7. Section summary 238
3. How QVEs Come About in Sentences with FRs or Plu-
ral Definites 239
3.1. Quantification over the atomic parts of complex situa-
tions 240
3.1.1. Nakanishi and Romero (2004) on ‘for the most part’ 240
3.1.2. A slightly modified version of Nakanishi and Romero’s
idea 243
x Contents
3.2. An explanation for the tense agreement effect 248
3.3. The coincidence constraint 253
3.4. QVEs in sentences with kind-denoting DPs 258
4. Conclusion 261
References 267
Index 285