Montague's treatment of determiner (or quantifier) phrases: A philosophical introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. e12496
Author(s):  
Ken Akiba
Keyword(s):  
Quantifier Phrases

Epistemic Containment

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai von Fintel ◽  
Sabine Iatridou
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Epistemic Modal ◽  
Quantifier Phrases

This article concerns a new constraint on the interaction of quantifier phrases and epistemic modals. It is argued that QPs cannot bind their traces across an epistemic modal, though it is shown that scoping mechanisms of a different nature are permitted to cross epistemic modals. The nature and source of this constraint are investigated.

A new classifier-based plural morpheme in German Sign Language (DGS)

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-136
Author(s):  
Marjorie Herbert
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Spatial Localization ◽  
Classifier System ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Quantifier Phrases ◽  
German Sign Language

Abstract German Sign Language (DGS) displays variation in the simple plural, the form of which is conditioned by classes of phonological features within the lexicon. As a consequence, the overt realization of the plural marker is restricted to a small set of nouns specified for the appropriate phonological features, while the rest are left bare (Pfau & Steinbach 2005, 2006; Steinbach 2012). Pfau & Steinbach (2005) report a number of ‘alternative pluralization strategies’ available as repairs for this underspecification, including classifier constructions, spatial localization, and number and quantifier phrases. I propose a previously undescribed mechanism for plural marking, the ‘classifier-based plural morpheme’ (CLP), grammaticalized from the classifier system into a morpheme in the grammars of individual DGS signers. Elicitation data show that this morpheme attaches only to nouns which are specified for phonological features that restrict the realization of the canonical plural marker, adding a new option to the range of pluralization strategies available.

Questions about quantifiers

1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan van Benthem
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Mathematical Structures ◽  
Fixed Model ◽  
Semantic Treatment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Image Position ◽  
Quantifier Phrases

The importance of the logical ‘generalized quantifiers’ (Mostowski [1957]) for the semantics of natural language was brought out clearly in Barwise & Cooper [1981]. Basically, the idea is that a quantifier phrase QA (such as “all women”, “most children”, “no men”) refers to a set of sets of individuals, viz. those B for which (QA)B holds. Thus, e.g., given a fixed model with universe E,where ⟦A⟧ is the set of individuals forming the extension of the predicate “A” in the model. This point of view permits an elegant and uniform semantic treatment of the subject-predicate form that pervades natural language.Such denotations of quantifier phrases exhibit familiar mathematical structures. Thus, for instance, all A produces filters, and no A produces ideals. The denotation of most A is neither; but it is still monotone, in the sense of being closed under supersets. Mere closure under subsets occurs too; witness a quantifier phrase like few A. These mathematical structures are at present being used in organizing linguistic observations and formulating hypotheses about them. In addition to the already mentioned paper of Barwise & Cooper, an interesting example is Zwarts [1981], containing applications to the phenomena of “negative polarity” and “conjunction reduction”. In the course of the latter investigation, several methodological issues of a wider logical interest arose, and these have inspired the present paper.In order to present these issues, let us shift the above perspective, placing the emphasis on quantifier expressions per se (“all”, “most”, “no”, “some”, etcetera), viewed as denoting relations Q between sets of individuals.

Cardinality logics. Part II: Definability in languages based on ‘exactly’

1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 765-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Hodes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Number ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Singular Terms ◽  
First Order ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ordinary Usage ◽  
Quantifier Phrases

This paper continues the project initiated in [5]: a model-theoretic study of the concept of cardinality within certain higher-order logics. As recommended by an editor of this Journal, I will digress to say something about the project's motivation. Then I will review some of the basic definitions from [5]; for unexplained notation the reader should consult [5].The syntax of ordinary usage (with respect to the construction of arguments as well as the construction of individual sentences) makes it natural to classify numerals and expressions of the form ‘the number of F's’ as singular terms, expressions like ‘is prime’ or ‘is divisible by’ as predicates of what Frege called “level one”, and expressions like ‘for some natural number’ as first-order quantifier-phrases. From this syntatic classification, it is a short step—so short as to be frequently unnoticed—to a semantic thesis: that such expressions play the same sort of semantic role as is played by the paradigmatic (and nonmathematical) members of these lexical classes. Thus expressions of the first sort are supposed to designate objects (in post-Fregean terms, entities of type 0), those of the second sort to be true or false of tuples of objects, and those of the third sort to quantify over objects. All this may be summed up in Frege's dictum: “Numbers are objects.”

On the scope of quantifier phrases in Chinese passive construction

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Xiaolong Yang ◽  
Yicheng Wu
Keyword(s):  
Wide Scope ◽  
Quantifier Scope ◽  
Scope Ambiguity ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Single Sentence ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Quantifier Phrases ◽  
Semantic Properties

Abstract Quantifier phrases (QP) can co-occur in a single sentence, which may cause ambiguity in terms of scope relation, viz. wide scope and narrow scope interpretations. Aoun & Li (1993) claim that quantifier scope ambiguity also exists in Chinese passive construction, such as yige nűren bei meige ren ma ‘a woman was scolded by everyone’. Following Lee (1986)’s proposal, it is argued in this paper that the scopal relations of Chinese QPs are not purely syntactic as in Aoun & Li’s analysis, but should be determined by the interaction between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Based on naturalistic data, it is shown that (i) Chinese QPs can be classified into whQP, distributive-universal QP and group-denoting QP, whose semantic properties determine the scope relations between them; (ii) in general, a QP is devoid of referentiality, yet it can acquire referentiality depending on its co-occurrence with other QPs or contextual factors; (iii) the subject definiteness constraint in Chinese, a language-specific constraint, would affect the interpretation of subject QPs in Chinese passive construction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document