Quantificational Readings of Indefinites with Focused Creation Verbs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18148/sub/2006.v10i2.737Abstract
This paper looks at sentences with “quantificational indefinites,” discussed by Diesing (1992) and others. I propose that these sentences generate sets of alternatives of the form {p, not p and it’s possible that p}, which restrict the quantification by an extension of familiar focus principles. For example, in the sentence I usually read a book about slugs (on the relevant reading), usually quantifies over pairs <x,t> such that x is a book about slugs, t is a time interval, and one alternative is true from the set {I read x at t, I can but do not read x at t}. In addition to accounting for a well- known contrast between creation and non-creation verbs, this also explains a second contrast that Diesing’s analysis cannot account for.Downloads
Published
2019-08-19
How to Cite
Stephenson, T. (2019). Quantificational Readings of Indefinites with Focused Creation Verbs. Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung, 10(2), 347–360. https://doi.org/10.18148/sub/2006.v10i2.737
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