@article{Zobel_2021, title={Quantificational variability effects with German ’größtenteils’ and implicit agents}, volume={25}, url={https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/976}, DOI={10.18148/sub/2021.v25i0.976}, abstractNote={<p>This paper investigates quantificational variability effects (QVE) with adverbs of quantity, focusing on German <em>größtenteils</em> and the QV-interpretations that arise with arguments of the main verb. I propose that these QV-interpretations are plausibly a result of <em>gr¨oßtenteils</em> directly composing with the argument showing QVE. In the first part of the paper, I analyze the syntactic behavior and semantic contribution of <em>gr¨oßtenteils</em> and show how the QVE with explicit arguments of the main verb can be captured. In the second part, the proposal is adapted slightly to be compatible with an event-based analysis of verbal meaning, and I show that the amended proposal and Bruening’s (2013) account of short eventive passives suffice to capture QVE with <em>größtenteils</em> and implicit agents. As a consequence, the availability of such QV-interpretations cannot be taken as evidence for the view that implicit agents are syntactically represented (<em>pace</em> Alexiadou and M¨uller 2018; M¨uller 2019).</p>}, journal={Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, author={Zobel, Sarah}, year={2021}, month={Sep.}, pages={939–956} }