Scope ambiguities through the mirror

2010 ◽  
pp. 11-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaella Bernardi
Keyword(s):  
Scope Ambiguities

scholarly journals Scope ambiguities, monads and strengths

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Grudzinska ◽  
Marek Zawadowski
Keyword(s):  
Scope Ambiguities

Pragmatics in the interpretation of scope ambiguities

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-461
Author(s):  
Valentina Apresjan
Keyword(s):  
Background Knowledge ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Scope Ambiguity ◽  
Scope Ambiguities ◽  
Demonstrative Pronouns ◽  
Universal Quantifiers ◽  
Scope Assignment

Abstract This paper presents a corpus study of pragmatic factors involved in interpreting potentially ambiguous sentences with negation and universal quantifiers, as demonstrated by the Russian sentence Oni ne uspejut vsjo eto sdelat’ ‘They won’t have time to do all this.’ Ambiguity in such sentences results from potential differences in scope assignment. If negation scopes over the quantifier, we get the interpretation of partial negation: ‘They will manage to do some of these things, but not everything.’ If negation scopes over the verb, we get total negation: ‘They won’t manage to do anything.’ This study is based on Russian and English data extracted from a variety of corpora. We demonstrate that while syntactic conditions where scope ambiguity is possible are different for Russian and English, in situations when both languages allow it, speakers rely on the same pragmatic mechanisms for disambiguation that are based on Gricean cooperation principle and shared background knowledge. Disambiguation is facilitated by lexical markers, different for verb-negated and quantifier-negated readings, and similar in Russian and English. We show that the interpretation of the quantifier is pragmatically different for verb-negated and quantifier-negated readings (emphatic in the former case and quantificational in the latter), and lexical markers of each reading are semantically and pragmatically consistent with this difference. Namely, verb-negated readings occur primarily in the context of demonstrative pronouns in their pragmaticalized meaning of negative assessment and negatively connoted nouns, while quantifier-negated readings occur in the context of verbs with quantitative semantics and quantitative implicatures that consolidate the interpretation of quantification.

Competition During the Processing of Quantifier Scope Ambiguities: Evidence from Eye Movements during Reading

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin B. Paterson ◽  
Ruth Filik ◽  
Simon P. Liversedge
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Wide Scope ◽  
Quantifier Scope ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Scope Ambiguity ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Scope Ambiguities ◽  
Eye Movements During Reading ◽  
Processing Difficulty

We investigated the processing of sentences containing a quantifier scope ambiguity, such as Kelly showed a photo to each critic, which is ambiguous between the indefinite phrase ( a photo) having one or many referents. Ambiguity resolution requires the computation of relative quantifier scope, with either a photo or each critic taking wide scope, thereby determining the number of referents. Using eye tracking, we established that multiple factors, including the grammatical function and surface linear order of quantified phrases, along with their lexical characteristics, interact during the processing of relative quantifier scope, with conflict between factors incurring a processing cost. We discuss the results in terms of theoretical accounts attributing sentence-processing difficulty to either reanalysis (e.g., Fodor, 1982) or competition between rival analyses (e.g., Kurtzman & MacDonald, 1993).

scholarly journals A typology of negation in a constraint-based framework of syntax and semantics

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henriette De Swart
Keyword(s):  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Polarity Items ◽  
Storage Mechanism ◽  
Scope Ambiguities ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Negative Indefinites ◽  
Polyadic Quantifier

Negation and negative indefinites raise problems for the principle of compositionality of meaning, because we find both double and single negation readings in natural languages. De Swart and Sag (2002) solve the compositionality problem in a polyadic quantifier framework. The syntax-semantics interface exploits an extension of the Cooper storage mechanism that HPSG uses to account for scope ambiguities. In de Swart and Sag (2002), all negative quantifiers are collected into an N-store, and are interpreted by means of iteration (double negation) or resumption (negative concord) upon retrieval. This puts the ambiguity between single and double negation readings in the grammar, rather than in the lexical items. This paper extends the earlier analysis with a typology of negation and negative indefinites using bi-directional optimality theory (OT). The constraints defined are universal, but their ranking varies from one language to the next. In negative concord languages, the functional motivation for the marking of 'negative variables' wins out, so we use n-words. Double negation languages value first-order iteration, so we use plain indefinites or negative polarity items within the scope of negation. The bi-directional set-up is essential, for syntactic and semantic variation go hand in hand.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document