Quantified indicative conditionals and the relative reading of most

Abstract

Kratzer (in press) notes a curious ‘reverse’ reading for certain quantified conditionals with most. The existence of this reading is problematic for accounts that aim at compositionally deriving the perceived interpretation of quantified conditionals, especially for those that take if-clauses to semantically restrict the domain of nominal quantifiers. We show how the reverse reading can be derived on such a restrictor account, as an instance of the relative reading of most. The derivation closely parallels a recent account of the ‘reverse proportional’ reading of many (Romero, 2015). Our account is entirely compositional and draws on independently motivated assumptions about the interpretation of most.