Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation [1 ed.] 9781135637149, 9780815325604

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OUTSTANDING DISSERTATIONS IN

LINGUISTICS

edited by LAURENCE HORN Y ALE UNIVERSITY

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CASE CONFIGURATION AND NOUN PHRASE INTERPRETATION

HELEN DE HOOP

I

~~o~;~~n~~~up

New York London

Copyright © 1996 Helen de Hoop All rights reserved First published 1996 by Garland Publishing, Inc. This edition published 2013 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoop, Helen de, 1964Case configuration and noun phrase interpretation / Helen de Hoop. p. cm. - (Outstanding dissertations in linguistics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8153-2560-6 (alk. paper) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general-Noun phrase. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general-Case. 3. Grammar, Comparative and general-Syntax. 4. Generative grammar. 5. Semantics. I. Title. II. Series. P271.H66 1996 415- dc20 96-21117

CONTENTS Preface Chapter

.................................................................................. ix

o. 1.

2.

3.

4 Chapter 2

O. 1.

The semantics of noun phrases ............................ 3 Introduction .............................................................. 3 NPs as generalized qualifiers ............................... 4 1.0 Introduction ................................................... 4 I. I NPs as families of sets ................................ 5 1.2 A relational view .......................................... 6 1.3 Some basic constraints ................................ 7 1.4 Monotonicity ................................................. 9 1.5 The weak-strong distinction ..................... 12 Indefinite NPs ........................................................ 18 2.0 Introduction ................................................. 18 2.1 Indefinites as variables ............................. 18 2.2 The proportion problem ............................ 21 2.3 Two solutions within DRT ........................ 23 2.4 Heim (1990) ................................................ 25 2.5 Chierchia (1992) ......................................... 30 Strong readings of indefinites and other weak NPs ................................................................ 35 3.0 Introduction ................................................. 35 3.1 Referential indefinites ............................... 36 3.2 The partitive reading of cardinal NPs ................................................................ 41 3.3 The generic reading of indefinites .......... 49 3.4 Concluding remarks ................................... 50 Conclusion ............................................................. 52 The hypothesis ....................................................... 57 Introduction ............................................................ 57 Case theory in generative grammar .................. 58 1.0 Introduction ................................................. 58 1.1 Abstractness of Case .................................. 58 1.2 The Case filter ............................................ 59 1.3 Case theory and theta theory .................... 60 1.4 Structural and inherent Case assignment ................................................... 61

v

2

3.

4.

5.

6. Chapter 3

O. 1.

Case and (in)definiteness in existential sentences ................................................................. 62 2.0 Introduction ................................................. 62 2.1 Safir's Case inheritance analysis ............. 63 2.2 Belletti's partitive Case ............................. 66 Strong and weak Case .......................................... 69 3.0 Introduction ................................................. 69 3.1 Two objective Cases .................................. 70 3.2 The nature of weak Case ........................... 75 3.3 Deriving Case adjacency .......................... 80 3.4 Some consequences .................................... 86 Case and interpretation ........................................ 92 4.0 Introduction ................................................. 92 4.1 The hypothesis ............................................ 94 4.2 Partee's type-shifting principles ............ 102 4.3 Possible types for weak NPs .................. 108 4.4 Strong NPs as part of the predicate .................................................... 114 4.5 Incorporation ............................................. 115 The relation between syntax and semantics .............................................................. 118 5.0 Introduction ............................................... 118 5.1 Problems for the mapping hypothesis .................................................. 119 5.2 Towards an analysis ................................. 127 5.3 A modular system ..................................... 131 Conclusion ........................................................... 133 Scrambling, subjects, and the weak-strong distinction ............................................................. 143 Introduction .......................................................... 143 Object-scrambling .............................................. 144 1.0 Introduction ............................................... 144 1.1 D-structure versus S-structure ............... 145 1.2 Scrambling as A-movement ................... 147 1.3 Why weak NPs cannot scramble ........... 151 1.4 Against the mapping hypothesis ............ 153 1.5 The principle of contrastiveness ........... 165 1.6 Conclusion ................................................. 174

vi

2

3.

4.

Subjects in Dutch and English ......................... 175 2.0 Introduction ............................................... 175 2.1 Dutch existential sentences .................... 176 2.2 Weak subjects in standard subject position ........................................ 180 2.3 An analysis in terms of strong and weak Case .......................................... 183 2.4 Subject scrambling ................................... 187 2.5 The was jur-split and the wat voor-split ................................................... 188 2.6 The principle of contrastiveness ........... 197 2.7 Conclusion ................................................. 202 On the characterization of the weakstrong distinction ................................................ 202 3.0 Introduction ............................................... 202 3.1 Presuppositionality .................................. 204 3.2 Quantificational determiners and their arguments ......................................... 208 3.3 A case study: Dutch sommige ................ 213 3.4 The semantic filter in existential sentences ..................................................... 219 3.5 Partitives .................................................... 222 3.6 Summary .................................................... 229 Conclusion ........................................................... 230

Chapter 4

Conclusion ........................................................... 237

Bibliography

............................................................................... 243

Index

............................................................................... 255

vii

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Preface The present study examines the relation between two types of structural Case on the one hand, and the interpretation of NPs on the other. In chapter 1 the semantics of NPs is focussed upon, in particular the different strong readings of weak NPs. In chapter 2 it is argued that strong readings of weak NPs must be attributed to the type of an NP, namely, the type of a generalized quantifier. Besides, I argue that there are two types of structural Case, to wit weak D-structural and strong S-structural Case. The hypothesis that links these two types of Case to different interpretations states that an object is interpreted as a generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. It is furthermore argued that the relation between syntax and semantics should not be analyzed in terms of a strict mapping procedure from syntactic structure onto semantic representation as it has to involve features such as type of Case and focus. In chapter 3 the theory is further extended in order to explain the characteristics of several linguistic phenomena, such as object-scrambling in Dutch and existential sentences in Dutch and English. What you definitely need when writing a book like this is people who guard you from making mistakes caused by ignorance, who kindly comment upon drafts, who take time to discuss new ideas with you, and who cheer you up when you need it. I wish to thank the people who did some or all of those for me. I thank Jan Koster for the stimulative role he played in the completion of this book. His comments were always constructive. I thank Barbara Partee for her invaluable and careful comments, the interest she has shown in my work, and I am obliged for all the time she spent on me. Eric Reuland's encouragement has been of major importance to me. Discussions with him were always equally tiring and inspiring and I cannot imagine what it would have been like to write a book without his continuous support and advice. I am grateful to Frans Zwarts, who invited me into the field of model-theoretic semantics and has not lost sight of me since.

ix

x

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

benefited a great deal from discussions with my colleagues in and outside Groningen, in particular Peter Blok, Ale de Boer, Hans Broekhuis, Peter Coopmans, Teresa Guasti, Petra Hendriks, Angeliek van Hout, Jelly de Jong, Mark Kas, Wim Kosmeijer, Rita Landeweerd, Liesbeth Laport, Ad Neeleman, Frans van der Putten, Hotze Rullmann, Ed Ruys, Henriette de Swart, Anne Vainikka, Guido Vanden Wyngaerd, Jan-Wouter Zwart and Joost Zwarts. I gratefully acknowledge the Foundation for Linguistic Research, funded by the Dutch organization for research, NWO, for supporting the research reported in this study (grant 300-171005). Finally, I wish to thank my relatives and friends and Paul in particular, for sharing with me joy and sorrow throughout the years. Groningen, May 1996

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

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Chapter 1

The semantics of noun phrases

o.

Introduction

The present chapter focuses on the semantic status of Noun Phrases (NPs). In the first section an introduction into the framework of generalized quantifiers is provided, a framework that has proven its great use for the study of natural language quantifiers in the past decade. Within this theory, it is possible to view all NPs as generalized quantifiers. In section 2 the framework of Discourse Representation Theory is introduced. One of the main principles of this theory is that it is not sufficient to give a static interpretation of sentences in terms of truth conditions, but that we need a dynamic interpretation in terms of information added to the previous discourse. Within this framework a distinction between quantificational and indefinite NPs is made: indefinites are taken to be variables that get their possible quantificational force from their environment. This accounts for the dynamic behaviour of indefmites. DRT, however, is not the only framework that can deal with this dynamic behaviour of indefinites. More recently, theories have been developed that combine the advantages of the theory of generalized quantifiers and a dynamic perspective. Apart from whether indefinites should be considered variables or generalized quantifiers, an explanation has to be found for the different readings of indefinite NPs and, more generally, weak

3

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

4

NPs. Certain strong readings of weak NPs are problematic for both frameworks. In section 3 several types of these so-called strong readings pass in review. I will argue that this kind of ambiguity in the interpretation of weak NPs is not due to a lexical ambiguity, but results from independent syntactic factors. A principal syntactic factor that will be studied in this book is the assignment of Case. The hypothesis that is developed in chapter 2 is about the connection between type of interpretation and type of Case assignment with regard to NPs.

1.

NPs as generalized quantifiers

1.0 Introduction Since the article of Barwise and Cooper (1981), which can be considered a land-mark in the field of model-theoretic semantics that draws on Montague (1974), the theory of generalized quantifiers has become a very fruitful trend in studying the semantics of natural language. This section provides a brief introduction into this framework. The universal and the existential quantifiers V and :3 of predicate logic are not sufficient for a semantic analysis of all quantifying expressions of natural language. Firstly, the syntactic structure of quantified formulas in predicate logic does not correspond to the syntactic structure of quantified sentences in natural language. Secondly, as proven by Barwise and Cooper, an NP such as most N is not expressible in terms of first-order quantifiers only. The following can serve as an illustration: Suppose there would be a quantifier meaning 'most', represented as M. It can be shown that there is no way to translate a sentence such as (1) in predicate logic in terms of this quantifier M; an attempt is made in (2): (1)

Most linguists are lazy

(2)

a.

b.

Mx [Lx & Zx] Mx [Lx - Zx]

(L = Linguist; Z = Lazy)

The Semantics of NPs

5

Consider a situation in which there are 20 people, 5 of whom are linguists. If 4 of these linguists are lazy, sentence (1) is undoubtedly true. But according to the formula in (2a) the sentence should be false, because it is not true for most individuals in the domain of discourse that they are linguist (let alone the individuals that are linguists and lazy). The formula in (2b) leads to the wrong result in a similar situation, in which only 2 of the 5 linguists are lazy. In that case, sentence (1) is obviously false, but according to (2b) it comes out as true, since not only the 2 lazy linguists but also the 15 people who are not linguists lead to the truth value 1 in the above implication. The above indicates some of the problems that are met when one tries to define a first -order version of most; the problem with the representation of (1) is that a quantifier like most does in fact not quantify over all individuals in the domain of discourse, but should be restricted to the set of linguists. As for the proof that most is not first-order expressible except when one is allowed to refer to cardinalities within the object language, I refer to Barwise and Cooper (1981).

1.1 NPs as families of sets In terms of set theory, generalized quantifiers denote families of sets. An NP like most linguists then denotes a family of sets of individuals. Each set represents a property that holds for most linguists. Thus, if it is true that most linguists drink a lot, that most linguists have a cat, and that most linguists work at night, then the family of sets denoted by most linguists contains the set of individuals that drink a lot, the set of cat -owners, and the set of night-workers. At this point, the quantifier most N can be defined as follows: (3)

II Most Nil = {X ~ E: X contains most Ns} (where E stands for the domain of discourse, that is the set of entities provided by the model)

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

6

In (3) we can assume that most means 'more than half; a more elaborated definition of most N is given below in (4). The categorial type of a generalized quantifier is < ,t>: e stands for individual, t for truth value. Thus, is the type of a property, that is a function from individuals to truth values and hence a quantifier is understood as a function from properties to truth values. l Following Montague, Barwise and Cooper claim that all NPs are interpreted as generalized quantifiers. So, proper names like Jackie should then also be understood as a collection of properties, rather than as an individual of type e. In that case, the sentence Jackie is pregnant is true if the set of pregnant individuals is an element of the family of sets Jackie denotes. The definitions of some NP interpretations are given below: (4)

a.

b.

c.

d.

II all Nil = Iino Nil = Ilat least n II most Nil

{X ~ E: IINII ~ X} {X ~ E: IINII n X = ¢} Nil = {X ~ E: I II Nil n XI ~ n} = {X ~ E: IIINII n XI > IIINII -

XI} Other NPs can only be interpreted under certain conditions; the interpretation function is then partial. Examples are given in (5):

(5)

a. b.

II the n Nil undefined II both Nil undefined

= II all N II iff III N III = n, otherwise = II all N II iff III N III = 2, otherwise

1.2 A relational view A slightly different but equivalent view on generalized quantifiers is the relational perspective (cf. Zwarts 1983, Van Benthem 1986), which is often taken to study the semantics of determiners. In this perspective, determiners are interpreted as two-place relations between sets of individuals. A determiner is then a functor D which assigns to each universe E a binary relation DE between subsets of E. Some examples are given in (6):

The Semantics of NPs (6)

a.

b. c.

d.

e.

7

allEAB iff nOEAB iff at least nEAB iff mostEAB iff bothEAB iff

IA-B 1=0 IAnBI =0 IAnBI~n

IAnBI> IA-BI IA-B 1=0 & IAnB 1=2

For instance, in the sentence All fishes are vertebrates the determiner all denotes a relation between the set of fishes and the set of vertebrates, such that the sentence is true if and only if the difference of these two sets (i.e. the fishes that are not vertebrates) is empty.

1.3 Some basic constraints Not every binary relation between sets can be taken as a determiner denotation. Several principles have been formulated in order to capture restrictions on the range of admissible semantic denotations for these expressions. The three basic constraints which are to be satisfied by (logical) determiners are known as Extension, Conservativity, and Quantity: (7)

EXTENSION A,B ~ E ~ E' -> (DEAB

++

DE.AB)

Extension is the principle of context neutrality; it guarantees that D has the same structure everywhere. (8)

CONSER VATIVITY DEAB ++ DEA(BnA)

This principle is illustrated by the following natural language examples: (9)

a. b.

All All No No

linguists linguists linguists linguists

are are are are

pregnant pregnant linguists drunk drunk linguists

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

8

c.

Both linguists have a cat Both linguists are linguists who have a cat

+>

The above equivalencies show that in order to determine the truth values of these sentences, we only need to be concerned with the set the noun refers to (A) and the intersection of the sets denoted by the noun and the predicate (AnB), whereas we can ignore the rest of set B (B-A), which is irrelevant for the truth values of the sentences. Conservativity is called the live on-property in Barwise and Cooper (1981). When we combine Conservativity and Extension, the set A becomes the only relevant part of the universe with regard to the question whether DAB holds in E: (10)

STRONG CONSERVATIVITY DEAB +> D AA(AnB)

The last principle under discussion has been called the principle of topic neutrality, since it states that determiners are only concerned with the cardinalities of the sets under consideration: (11)

QUANTITY DEAB only depends on the number of individuals A, AnB, B, and E

III

This means that determiners are invariant under permutations of the universe E. Consider for instance sentence (12): (12)

At least two people are in love

This sentence will be true when the intersection of the set of people and the set of individuals who are in love contains two or more members, but it does not matter who these people in love are. The sentence is true in a situation where (at least) Jane and Jackie are in love, but it is equally true in a situation where (at least) Paul and Peter are in love. Determiner expressions such as Jane's, three blue, and Dutch sommige 'some/certain' fail the principle of Quantity in (11) (cf. chapter 3, §3.3).

The Semantics of NPs

9

The three principles and their cumulative effect are illustrated in (13): (13) EXTENSION A

CONSERVATIVITY CONSER VA TIVITY

A

B

B

E

(Q) QUANTITY A

abc

B

EXT+ CONS + QUANT E

A

a b

d

Thus, Extension says that the entities which fall outside A and B can be left out of consideration; therefore, the remainder of E is not represented in this picture. Conservativity says that only A and the intersection of A and B matter; hence, B-A can be omitted. Quantity says that only the cardinalities of the sets involved should be taken into consideration; the cardinalities of A-B, AnB, B-A, and E-(A uB) are represented in the picture by a, b, c, and d, respectively. Cumulatively, the three principles say that only the cardinalities of A-B and AnB are to be taken into consideration; this is illustrated in the last diagram.

1.4 Monotonicity Apart from these general constraints, other conditions on determiners have been studied that yield classifications of determiners which are of utmost importance for natural language phenomena. Probably the most famous one of these properties is monotonicity, which has come to play an important role in the semantics of natural language, since it has been pointed out that it

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

10

is the key to understanding the behaviour of negative polarity items by Ladusaw (1980) and Zwarts (1981, 1986). Monotonicity is a well-known notion in mathematics. A function f is said to be monotone increasing if a > b implies that f( a) > f(b). A function g is said to be monotone decreasing if a > b implies thatg(a) < g(b). Determiners can be divided into two subclasses, the class of non-monotone determiners and the class of monotone determiners. The latter can be divided into the monotone increasing determiners and the monotone decreasing ones. A determiner is monotone increasing or decreasing in its first argument (A) if it is closed under supersets or subsets respectively: (14)

(15)

MONt: MON·I-:

If DEAB and A ~ A', then DEA'B If DEAB and A' ~ A, then DEA'B

The following implications show that the determiner at least three is monotone increasing with respect to its first argument, whereas the determiner all is monotone decreasing in its first argument: (16)

a. b.

At least three linguists are lazy At least three people are lazy All people are lazy All linguists are lazy

A determiner is monotone increasing or decreasing in its second argument (B) if it satisfies the following conditions. (17) (18)

MONt: MON·I-:

If DEAB and B ~ B', then DEAB' If DEAB and B' ~ B, then DEAB'

It can now be shown that the determiners all and no are monotone increasing and decreasing in their second argument, respectively:

(19)

a. b.

All All No No

linguists linguists linguists linguists

drink past is drink drink drink pastis

-+ -+

The Semantics of NPs

11

The non-validity of the implications in (20) shows that the determiner exactly two is non-monotone in each of its arguments: (20)

a.

Exactly Exactly Exactly Exactly Exactly Exactly Exactly Exactly

b. c. d.

two two two two two two two two

linguists are lazy people are lazy people are lazy linguists are lazy linguists drink pastis linguists drink linguists drink linguists drink pastis

f f f f

As was pointed out for the first time by Ladusaw (1980), negative polarity items - traditionally defined as expressions that need to be triggered by negation elements (e.g. Klima 1964a, Baker 1970) give rise to ill-formedness if they are not in the scope of a monotone decreasing expression. This is shown in the following Dutch examples that contain the negative polarity item ook maar iets 'anything': (21)

a.

b. *

c. *

(22)

a.

AIle lingulsten die ook maar iets geschreven [Dutch] hebben, worden beroemd all linguists who have written anything, become famous Minstens drie lingulsten die ook maar iets geschreven hebben, worden beroemd at least three linguists who have written anything, become famous Precies twee lingulsten die ook maar iets geschreven hebben, worden beroemd exactly two linguists who have written anything, become famous

* AIle

lingulsten hebben ook maar geschreven all linguists have written anything

iets

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

12

b. c.

*

Geen enkele linguist heeft ook maar iets geschreven no linguist has written anything Precies twee lingulsten hebben ook maar iets geschreven exactly two linguists have written anything

In (21a) the negative polarity item occupies a position in the first argument of the determiner aile 'all'. This determiner is monotone decreasing with respect to its first argument and hence, the sentence is well-formed. In (21b), the negative polarity item is in the scope of a determiner that is monotone increasing in its first argument, and the sentence becomes ill-formed. The same holds for (21c) where we are dealing with a non-monotone determiner. In (22), the negative polarity item occurs in the second argument of the determiner. Accordingly, only the b-sentence is grammatical because it is only the determiner geen enkele 'no', that is monotone decreasing in its second argument. The determiners aile 'all' and precies twee 'exactly two' are monotone increasing and non-monotone with respect to their second argument. Zwarts (1981, 1986) shows that the triggers of negative polarity can be further subdivided. As was pointed out by Zwarts, this is necessary to explain the different behaviour of two classes of negative polarity items.

1.5 The weak-strong distinction Another relational property that plays an important role in natural language phenomena is symmetry. Symmetry can be defined as follows: (23)

SYMMETRY DEAB ++ DE(AnB)(AnB)

(26) B

A

AnB

Barwise and Cooper argue that the property of intersectivity is shared by all weak determiners, whereas strong determiners do not satisfy intersectivity. The weak-strong distinction emerges in many natural language constructions, the most well-known of which is probably the existential there be-sentence. In a wide variety of languages, existential sentences seem to exhibit a so-called definiteness restriction: definite NPs are excluded from existential sentences, whereas indefinite NPs are not: (27)

a. b.

* There is the unicorn in the garden There is a unicorn in the garden

However, the term definiteness restriction is somewhat misleading, as more determiners are involved than just the ones that can be

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

14

characterized as (in)definite. Milsark (1974, 1977) called the determiners that are allowed in existential sentences weak, and the ones that are blocked strong. The determiners some, three, and no are weak; ail, most, and both are strong, witness (28): (28)

a. b.

*

There are some/three/no unicorns garden There are all/most/both unicorns garden

In

the

In

the

Barwise and Cooper (1981) borrow the terms weak and strong from Milsark for two classes of determiners which are then semantically defined as follows: (29)

DEFINITION A determiner D is postitive strong (or negative strong, resp.) if for every model M = and every A t= E, if the quantifier liD I (A) is defined then A € liD I (A). (Or A rt liD I (A), resp.). If D is not (positive or negative) strong then D is weak

According to Barwise and Cooper, the definition in (29) can be used to actually explain why NPs with strong determiners are not allowed in existential sentences. Existential there be-sentences are interpreted as meaning that E (the set of all individuals in the model) is a member of the quantifier denoted by the NP. This would mean that for positive or negative strong determiners the result should be a tautology or contradiction. The question arises whether this explanation can indeed account for the ungrammaticality of e.g. (28b) , since in general, tautologies or contradictions do not lead to ungrammaticality in natural language but at most to oddness. In the definition of Barwise and Cooper, weak determiners are not defined separately, but only in terms of lack of strength. We have already seen that weak determiners share the property of symmetry or equivalently, intersectivity. Keenan and Stavi (1986) and Keenan (1987) provide another, strongly related way of defining weak determiners. In their analysis, weak determiners share the property of existentiality:

The Semantics of NPs (30)

15

DEFINITION a. A basic determiner is called existential iff it is always interpreted by an existential function, where b. A function f from properties to sets of properties is existential iff for all properties p,q p € f(q) iff 1 € f(q&p) (where 1 is the property shared by all individuals, i.e. being an individual or exist)

Keenan (1987) argues that (30) is a better way of defining the weak-strong distinction than the attempt of Barwise and Cooper, first of all because (30) does not require the use of a partial function. In the account of Barwise and Cooper, an NP like the two linguists has no denotation defined in a model which does not contain exactly two linguists, whereas in Keenan's approach it denotes the empty set of properties. The latter account avoids the problem of having to decide in a principled way whether a determiner denotation fails to have a certain property in its domain or whether it has the property in its domain but assigns to it the empty set. For example, if one would decide that no does not include the zero property (that is the property of nonexistence, the property that no individual has) in its domain, it would be negative strong instead of weak: No linguists are linguists is false whenever there are any linguists. Similarly, some would be positive strong if zero is not in its domain, as some linguists are linguists can only be false where there are no linguists. So, the only way to classify weak determiners such as no, some, etc. as weak is to make sure that the zero property is in their domain, and yet, as Keenan points out, usually we would not use an assertion of the form Det linguists are ill if we knew that there were no linguists. Secondly, if the class of determiners is extended, Barwise and Cooper's definition yields the wrong classification in certain cases. For instance, maximally trivial determiners like at least zero, either infinitely many or else just finitely many, fewer than zero, and more female than female, are (positive or negative) strong according to Barwise and Cooper's approach, but existential according to Keenan. Clearly, Keenan's analysis is preferable here, since all of

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

16

these determiners can occur in existential sentences, witness for instance (31): (31)

There are at least zero unicorns in the garden

As was said before, trivial expressions like tautologies or contradictions do not necessarily give rise to ungrammaticality, but at most to oddness. Barwise and Cooper's analysis cannot account for the mere oddness of (31) compared to the unquestionable ungrammaticality of (28b). Thirdly, it is unclear how Barwise and Cooper would treat complex n-place determiners; probably, determiners such as at least as many... as ... or more ... than ... would be wrongly classed as (positive or negative) strong by their definition. The analysis of Keenan, on the other hand, extends easily to complex determiners in the following way: (32)

DEFINITION A determiner is called existential (simpliciter) iff either it is a basic existential determiner or it is built up from basic existential determiners by Boolean combinations, composition with adjective phrases, or the exception determiner operator (. .. but John)

The determiners as many... as ... and more ... than ... are classed as existential, and this seems correct because they are allowed III existential sentences, as is illustrated in (33) and (34): (33) (34)

There are as many unicorns as centaurs in the garden There are more men than women with hare-lips.

Finally, Keenan argues that his explanation for the definiteness restriction in existential sentences is better than the one Barwise and Cooper provide. According to Keenan's analysis, an existential sentence of the form there be NP XP is interpreted compositionally as NP be XP, expletive there being semantically empty. Such a sentence is equivalent to an existence assertion of the form NP XP exist only when the NP is existential. When a non-existential NP occurs in an existential sentence, this does not necessarily give rise

The Semantics of NPs

17

to ungrammaticality, but the sentence is not understood as an existence assertion anymore. This can be expressed in the following theorem: (35)

THEOREM Existential there be-sentences of the form in (35a) are logically equivalent to the existence assertion reading (35b) if and only if the determiner expression D IS always interpreted by an existential function a. there [be [NpD unicornllxpin the garden]] b. [NpD [cNpunicorn in the garden)) exist c. 1 E (D(unicom & in the garden»

This analysis provides an interpretation for existential sentences in which the NP is not existential, such as for instance (36a): (36)

a. b.

c.

There's the biggest cat in the garden! The biggest cat is in the garden! The biggest cat in the garden exists!

As the analysis predicts correctly, the interpretation of (36a) is (36b) and not the existence assertion reading given in (36c). As Keenan points out, he only claims that existential sentences with non-existential NPs are not understood on an existence assertion reading. That means that he cannot explain why non-existential NPs in existential sentences usually lead to ungrammaticality. In this respect, his analysis is no better than that of Barwise and Cooper. The weak-strong distinction, as set forth above, plays an important role in more natural language constructions than existential sentences only (see also Reuland and Ter Meulen (1987) (eds.». Consider for instance the following examples: (37) (38) (39) (40)

Jackie has some/*all sisters in New Zealand This prison has no/*both windows Many/*most books have appeared already about linguistics If a farmer has a/*every donkey, he beats it

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

18

Yet, the weak-strong dichotomy is often used quite loosely and mostly based on existential sentences. In some cases, a closer examination of the facts might prove that different semantic properties are involved. Moreover, it is not quite clear yet which characterization of weak and strong determiners is the most appropriate or the most fundamental one. In chapter 3, the thread of this discussion of the characterization of the weak-strong distinction will be taken up again.

2.

Indefinite NPs

2.0 Introduction In a generalized quantifier approach, all NPs are treated uniformly, including proper names, definite NPs, and indefinite NPs. Indefinite determiners, i.e. the indefinite articles a/an and 0, denote a relation between two sets that can be defined as follows: (41)

aEAB iff AnB

'* 0

Thus, a sentence like A unicorn is grazing in the garden is true if and only if the intersection of the set of unicorns and the set of individuals that are grazing in the garden is not empty. In other words, indefinite NPs are interpreted as existential quantifiers, a common view that originates from Russell. If indefinite NPs are taken to be quantifiers, then one would expect them to behave like other quantifiers, and exhibit the same properties with respect to scope and binding (with any differences explainable in terms of differences in the semantics of the particular quantifiers). In the next subsections it will become clear that this view encounters some serious problems, which has led several linguists to advocate alternative semantic analyses of indefinites.

2.1 Indefinites as variables Kamp (1981) and Heim (1982) form the starting-points of a theory that is nowadays known as Discourse Representation Theory

The Semantics of NPs

19

(DRT). In DRT, indefinites are taken to be variables instead of existential quantifiers. The major motivation for this analysis lies in the problem constituted by the so-called donkey-sentences, an example of which is given below: (42)

Every cat that likes a kitten licks it

The problem here is that the pronoun it is outside the scope of its antecedent a kitten. Something similar holds for the following example, where the indefinite seems to bind the pronoun outside the sentence. (43)

A man came in. He wanted coffee

Note that in this respect a man behaves unlike a quantifier like every man, and like a definite description such as the man. (44) * Every man came in. He wanted coffee (45) The man came in. He wanted coffee In Heim (1982) definites as well as indefinites are analyzed as variables; the quantificational force of an indefinite then is provided by the linguistic environment. In other words, indefinites have no quantificational force of their own. In (42), for instance, the quantifier every binds unselectively (cf. Lewis 1975) all free variables in its scope, as is illustrated in the following formula. (46)

\;fx,y [[cat(x) & kitten(y) & like(x,y)]-->Iicks(x,y)]

The same formula is used to represent the meaning of a similar sentence in which the adverb a/ways is the quantifier that binds the free variables of sentence (47) and of sentence (48) in which no overt quantifier is present. Heim claims that in sentences like (48) there is an implicit quantifier (meaning something like 'usually') that is the binder of the variables. (47) (48)

Always if a cat likes a kitten, she licks it If a cat likes a kitten, she licks it

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

20

According to Heim, sentences like (42), (47) and (48) consist of three parts, firstly an operator (the unselective quantifier in these examples), secondly a restrIctive clause that constitutes a resctriction on the domain of the quantifier, and thirdly the nuclear scope. The operator is a determiner in (42), and an adverb in (47). According to Heim, these differences do not affect the interpretations of these constructions, which should be the same. Actually, this claim leads to one of the biggest problems DRT meets, the proportion problem. This problem and some of the proposed solutions to it will be discussed in the next subsection. The unselective binding approach can account for the universal force that the indefinites in the above sentences seem to have, but what about ordinary existential readings for indefinites in unembedded sentences such as (49)? (49)

A cat is sleeping in the garden

In this sentence there seems to be no quantifier to bind the variable that the indefinite provides. The same holds for indefinites introduced in the nuclear scope of a tripartite construction, witness (50). (50)

Probably if a cat is aggressive, she has a kitten

Heim (chapter II) claims that in these cases the variables are bound by a discourse process called Existential Closure which states that an existential quantifier is adjoined to the nuclear scope of every quantifier and to every text (discourse unity). This boils down to an existential reading for all indefinites that are not bound in any other way.2 One of the main points of DRT is that one should not represent the meaning of sentences primitively in terms of their truth conditions, but rather in terms of the information they add to a discourse. The treatment of indefinites as variables that get their quantificational force from the environment accounts for their 'dynamic' behaviour: indefinites set up discourse referents that can bind beyond their sentential scope. However, a dynamic approach does not necessarily require an analysis of indefinites as variables. Recently, important research has been done on treatments of indefinites as existential quantifiers

The Semantics of NPs

21

within a dynamic perspective (cf. Barwise 1987, Schubert and Pelletier 1989, Groenendijk and Stokhof 1990, 1991, Chierchia 1992). A theory such as Chierchia's (1992) in fact combines the advantages of a static theory of generalized quantifiers, which has already proven to be fruitful in studying formal properties of natural language quantifiers, and a dynamic theory of context change.

2.2 The proportion problem One of the main problems for DRT is what Kadmon (1987) dubbed the proportion problem, a problem that was originally pointed out by Partee (1984a). It was mentioned earlier that DRT is based on an analysis of adverbs of quantification as unselective binders over cases (cf. Lewis 1975). Cases are n-tuples of individuals. For instance, in sentence (51) the adverb mostly quantifies over pairs of cats and kittens. (51)

Mostly, if a cat likes a kitten, she licks it

That would mean that in a situation in which one cat likes three kittens and she licks them all, and two cats each like one kitten but they do not lick these kittens, the sentence is true because there are three cat-kitten pairs for which the assertion holds and only two cat-kitten pairs for which it does not. However, as Kadmon (1987) points out, two other interpretations are also possible for these kind of sentences, namely one in which the adverb quantifies over cats and one where it quantifies over kittens. These last two readings are referred to as asymmetric readings, whereas the standard Lewis reading is called symmetric. Several factors are involved in determining whether a sentence is likely to get a symmetric or an asymmetric reading, e.g. the anaphors in the consequent (cf. Bauerle and Egli 1985) and sentence stress. This is illustrated in (52)-(54). (52)

Mostly, if a cat has a kitten, she is happy

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

22 (53) (54)

Mostly, if a cat likes a KITTEN, she licks it (whereas, if a cat likes a mouse, ... ) Mostly, if a CAT likes a kitten, she licks it (whereas, if a dog likes a kitten, ... )

In the consequent of (52) there is only an anaphoric link with the indefinite a cat and accordingly the most salient reading of (52) is where the adverb quantifies over cats that have a kitten instead of over cat-kitten pairs. That is, in a situation where one cat with three kittens is happy and two cats with one kitten each are unhappy, the sentence is false. Sentence stress as represented in (53) and (54) is taken to mark topic-focus structure (cf. Rooth 1987). In (53) the adverb quantifies over cats that like a kitten, due to the stress on kitten, whereas in (54), on the other hand, the adverb quantifies over kittens which are liked by a cat. Thus, in a situation where one cat likes three kittens and she licks all of them and two cats each like one kitten which they don't lick, the statement in (53) will be false, whereas (54) will be true. Sentences involving relative clauses are even more problematic for the standard DRT analysis than the multi-case conditionals discussed so far, since asymmetric readings often seem to be the only ones available in these examples. For instance, compare (51) (repeated below) to (55): (51) (55)

Mostly, if a cat likes a kitten, she licks it Most cats that like a kitten lick it

While a symmetric reading is perfect in (51), the statement in (55) is clearly to be judged false in the situation as described above with the one cat licking the three kittens she likes and the other two not licking the only kitten they like. The determiner quantifies over cats rather than over pairs of cats and kittens. Evidently, this is not predicted by a standard analysis in DRT. There are several solutions to this proportion problem, some of which have been formulated within the framework of DRT. In the next subsection I will discuss two solutions to the proportion problem formulated within DRT. Subsequently, two recent theories are discussed that look for a solution outside DRT, namely Heim (1990) and Chierchia

The Semantics of NPs

23

(1992). One other recent theory that would deserve discussion here is that of Kratzer (1989), but a discussion of her proposal with respect to the proportion problem is postponed until chapter 3.

2.3 Two solutions within DRT In Kamp's (1981) version of DRT the information in a discourse is represented by a Discourse Representation Structure (DRS) which is pictured as a box. Kadmon (1987, 1990) represents a sentence like (55) in a DRS as follows: (56) Most cats that like a kitten lick it

x cat (x)

y

kitten(y) like(x,y)

y

MOSTLY

kitten(y) like(x,y) x licks it licks(x,y)

Note that the main DRS in (56) contains a complex condition represented in terms of two DRSs: an antecedent DRS that functions as the restrictive clause and a consequent DRS functioning as the nuclear scope. The little DRS inside the antecedent DRS is bound by existential quantification. This accounts for the asymmetric reading: the quantification is over cats and not over cat-kitten pairs. Thus, Kadmon claims that asymmetric readings differ from symmetric readings in the internal structure of the restrictive clause. Furthermore, in order to make the variable y accessible to the pronoun it in the consequent box, the little DRS in the antecedent is copied into the consequent. So, (58) states that mostly, if a cat x is such that there is a kitten y such that x likes y, then there is a kitten y such that x likes y, and x licks that kitten. According to Kadmon, this process of copying is a matter of accommodation

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

24

which has no effect on the truth conditions and should therefore easily satisfy general conditions on accomodation. However, as Heim (1990) points out, Kadmon fails to formalize this process and to state precisely when accommodation is possible and how it can apply. At this point it is important to realize that what is necessary in order to deal with the proportion problem is selective binding. Determiners seem to give rise to asymmetric readings anyway, but even adverbs must be able to quantify asymmetrically dependent on contextual factors like sentence stress and choice of the verb. Refined versions of DRT, such as Kadmon (1987, 1990) and Kamp and Reyle (1990), make sure that they supply this requirement. Yet, Kadmon's way of embedding the dependent indefinite and closing it off existentially keeps the essence of unselective quantification intact. Kamp and Reyle (1993), on the other hand, would represent a sentence like (55) as in (57): (55)

Most cats that like a kitten lick it

(57)

x

y

cat (x)

kitten(y) like(x,y)

most

x

licks (x, y)

It will be clear that the quantifier most is quantifying selectively here. In fact, Kamp and Reyle incorporate generalized quantifiers in their Discourse Representation Theory. They consider duplex conditions (as they call these kind of conditions) to be generalized quantifiers that connect the two subordi_nate subordinate DRSs. The right hand DRS should be seen as an elaboration of the situation described by the one on the left hand side. It is obvious that the generalized quantifier thus satisfies the property of conservativity (cf. section

1.3).

The Semantics oj NPs

25

In this way, the quantifier most is quantifying asymmetrically over cats. Free discourse referents, such as y in the first argument DRS, are mapped onto elements of the universe. In other words, they are existentially closed. Naturally, if this way of incorporating generalized quantifiers into DRT is extended to adverbs of quantification, we have at our disposal a way to represent symmetric and asymmetric readings of conditionals as well. Unfortunately, the question which readings we get under which circumstances remains unsolved.

2.4 Heim (1990) Heim (1990) reconsiders the motivation which led to the DRTanalysis of indefinites as variables instead of existential quantifiers and, surprisingly, comes up with a traditional, albeit improved, alternative in which indefinites are existential quantifiers and donkey-pronouns are not bound variables but so-called E-type pronouns (cf. Evans 1977, 1980). E-type pronouns are semantically equivalent to definite descriptions. In (58), for instance, the pronoun them is interpreted as the sheep that Jane owns: (58)

Jane owns some sheep. Jackie vaccinates them

In a standard DRT analysis, (58) would cause trouble, because by existential closure it would get the wrong interpretation, namely that there are some sheep such that Jane owns them and Jackie vaccinates them. The right interpretation, however, is that there are some sheep such that Jane owns them and for all sheep that Jane owns it holds that Jackie vaccinates them. The principal argument in Heim (1982) against an E-type analysis is that E-type pronouns carry uniqueness-implications. An alleged counterexample to this, according to Heim (1982), is the following: (59)

If a man is in Athens, he is not in Rodes

If he were interpreted as the unique man that is in Athens in a certain world/at a certain time as Heim (1982) supposed, then

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

26

undoubtedly we get a wrong interpretation, since it is unlikely that at any moment there would be just one unique man in Athens. This reading, however, involves quantification over worlds or times and the implicit quantifier in (59) might be quantifying over something else, e.g. situations, as pointed out in Heim (1990). In that case, the pronoun in (59) would mean the unique man that is in Athens in a certain (minimal) situation. Clearly, other situations in which a man is in Athens might exist at the same time. A situation-based E-type analysis partly runs into the same problems as the standard DRT approach, one of them being the proportion problem. Reconsider (52): (52)

Mostly, if a cat has a kitten, she is happy

The preferred reading for this conditional is the one under which the adverb quantifies asymmetrically over cats instead of over minimal situations in which a cat has a kitten. Heim solves this problem quite easily (inspired by Kadmon 1987 and Berman 1987) by taking the adverb to quantify over smaller situations. In the case of (52), mostly quantifies over situations in which there is a cat which are part of situations in which that cat has a kitten. In this way Heim can account for all possible symmetric and asymmetric readings for multi-case conditionals. In the other kind of donkey sentences, those involving a relative clause, the proportion problem is very obvious for a DRT analysis. An E-type analysis, on the other hand, has its own problems in the form of unwelcome uniqueness presuppositions. Reconsider (42): (42)

Every cat that likes a kitten licks it

Suppose there are three cats and they all like three kittens each. If all cats lick all the kittens they like, (42) is intuitively judged true. The E-type analysis runs into problems here, as this analysis would interpret the pronoun it as the unique kitten that a cat likes in a certain situation. Obviously, there are no unique kittens here since all cats like more than one kitten. This means that for lack of cats

The Semantics of NPs

27

that like exactly one kitten, (42) would come out as true even in a situation where the cats do not lick any of these kittens. Heim follows Kadmon (1987), who argues that the sentence can be judged true in the described situation where all cats lick all the kittens they like, because which kitten the pronoun stands for cannot make any difference to the truth conditions of the sentence That is, the sentence would be true regardless of which function from cats liking kittens to kittens is chosen. After all, every kitten is licked. Unfortunately, as Heim points out, Kadmon's approach cannot account for the following example (borrowed from Rooth 1987): (60)

No parent with a son still in high school has ever lent him the car on a weeknight

The statement in (60) is clearly false in a situation in which there is one parent who has lent the car on a weeknight to a son in high school, even when this son has three brothers in high school whom this parent never lent the car to. Kadmon would predict that our judgements should be more insecure, because three functions are possible that map this parent to a son that never borrowed the car. In other words, in (42) all kittens must be licked in order to get a clear-cut truth value, but in (60) one son is enough to get one. One way of solving this problem (cf. a.o. Rooth 1987, Reinhart 1987) is to assume that in this kind of donkey sentences two quantifiers are involved instead of one. This is paraphrased below. (42') (60')

for every cat that likes a kitten: for every kitten she likes: she licks it for no parent with a son in high school: for any son in high school he or she has: he or she lends him the car on a weeknight

In this way, an indefinite inside a relative clause is either universally or existentially quantified over. In Heim's variant of this strategy, the second quantifier is again quantifying over situations. Heim admits that there is no principled way of predicting whether the second quantifier gets either existential or universal force.

28

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Another shortcoming of E-type approaches pointed out in Heim (1982) is illustrated in (61) and (62): (61) (62)

Every man who has a wife sits next to her

* Every married man sits next to her 3

E-type pronouns have quantified NPs as their antecedents, but they are not bound by them. Therefore, E-type analyses rely on pragmatic factors to interpret pronouns. The above data, however, suggest that a more syntactic link is involved between the pronoun and its antecedent. In order to solve this problem, Heim (1990) proposes to substitute a grammatical version of the E-type analysis for the pragmatic version. She provides the following transformation which can account for the difference between (61) and (62), following Parsons (1978):

(63)

X S Y NP j Z = = > 1 2 3 4 + 2 5 1 2 3 4 5 4 is a pronoun conditions: 2 is of the form Is NP j S) 6 7

Taking (42) into consideration once again, and its structure (64a), rule (63) yields (64b) as a result: (42) (64)

Every cat that likes a kitten licks it a. [everYxl [cat(x 1) that [[a x2 kitten(x2)Jz [likes(xl,x2) lll) dlicks(xl,it2») b. [everYxd cat(xl) that [[ a x2 kitten(x2) Jz [likes(xl,x2»)llldlicks(xl,[it2 [[a x2 kitten(x2)]z [likes( x1,xz»)]]))

The pronoun is now interpreted as the kitten the semantic rule (65): (65)

III

Xl

likes by means of

I it [[Detx'y)6)II g = the unique y such that II (.\' II gx\y = 11611 gx\y true (undefined if there is no unique such individual)

The Semantics of NPs

29

A remaining problem for Heim's E-type approach is what she dubs the problem of the indistinguishable participants. This problem arises in the case of symmetric predicates in conditionals. Some examples from Heim are listed below: (66)

(67)

If a man shares an apartment with another man, he shares the housework with him. (Whereas if a man shares an apartment with a woman, he expects her to do everything) If a bishop meets another man he blesses him

As far as Heim's theory goes, the implicit quantifier in (66) quantifies over minimal situations in which a man shares an apartment with another man. That means there can be no function f assigning to each situation s the unique man in s who in s shares an apartment with another man; in every s there are two men with this property. The same story can be told for (67) in those situations where one bishop meets another one. Kadmon's solution to the proportion problem might seem to work here. In (66), for instance, we could argue that two functions are involved: the first one assigns to each minimal situation s which contains a man x and is contained in a larger situation where x lives with another man the unique man in s and the second one assigns to s the unique man that the unique man in s lives with. However, Heim is not sure that this works out properly, since one would expect uniqueness effects. That is, (66) would presuppose that each man has at most one male roommate. But this is doubtful, viewed in the light of examples such as (68): (68)

If a man has the same name as another man, he

usually avoids addressing him by name Evidently, sentences such as (66)-(68) do not constitute a problem for the classical DRT-analysis.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

30

2.5 Chierchia (1992) Chierchia (1992) admits that there are certain cases, examples of which are given in (69)-(70), where dynamic binding fails to give the right analysis in a straightforward manner and which can easily be analyzed within an E-type approach. (69) (70)

Every man except John gave his paycheck to his wife. John gave it to his mistress It is not true that John doesn't have a car. It is parked in front of the house

As we learned in the previous section, Heim (1990) returns to the possibility of an 'E-type only' theory for pronouns. Chierchia, on the other hand, argues for a 'mixed' theory, one in which pronouns can behave either as bound variables or as E-type descriptions. But when is a pronoun interpreted as a bound variable and when is it a description? Chierchia thinks that the bound variable strategy is preferred whenever possible. This can be illustrated for the pair of sentences (61)-(62) (repeated below): (61) Every man who has a wife sits next to her (62) * Every married man sits next to her Chierchia argues that in these two sentences the pronoun is accessible from the subject position. Therefore, the bound variable strategy should be used. In (62) this strategy accounts for the illformedness under the intended interpretation. Chierchia adopts a framework which he calls Dynamic Type Theory (DTT) and which is closely related to Groenendijk and Stokhofs Dynamic Intensional Logic (DIL) and Dynamic Montague Grammar (DMG) (Groenendijk and Stokhof 1990, 1991). I will only present the main points here without going into details. The general idea is that natural language is compositionally translated into DTT. The semantics of a formula is no longer given in terms of its truth conditions but in terms of its possible continuations. A t-operator is introduced which maps each formula onto its possible continuations. That is, te updates the context in which e is uttered by characterizing the sets of cases (the term case is after

The Semantics of NPs

31

Lewis 1975) that are still open after the utterance of 8. Dynamic formulas are of type < ,t>, abbreviated as up. In this framework determiners are treated uniformly. All indefinites are taken to be existentially quantified. Determiners are no longer static in that they relate sets, but dynamic: they relate functions from individuals to updates. These functions from individuals to updates are called dynamic properties. An N can combine with a dynamic determiner, and this results in a dynamic generalized quantifier, a function from dynamic properties to updates. In order to account for the difference in binding potential between a and every it is assumed that they are both internally open (they allow an active quantifier in their restrictive clause to bind a pronoun in their nuclear scope), but only a is also externally open while every is externally closed. That is, only a can bind outside its sentential clause. Recall the sentences (43) and (44): (43) A man came in. He wanted coffee (44) * Every man came in. He wanted coffee Consider the following examples; the a-sentences are assigned the readings given in the b-sentences: (71)

a. b.

(72)

a. b.

A linguist who owns a donkey feeds it >.p3x3y[linguist(x) & donkey(y) & own(x,y) & feed(x,y) & Vp] Every linguist who owns a donkey feeds it >'p['v'x'v'y[[linguist(x) & donkey(y) & own(x,y)] - feed(x,y)] & Vp]

The variable p can be viewed as a 'peg' to which subsequent sentences are attached4 . Crucially, if (71b) is continued with another sentence, this will end up inside the scope of the quantifiers associated with a linguist and a donkey. On the other hand, if (72b) is continued, the continuation ends up outside the scope of the quantifiers. Furthermore, the proportion problem does not arise here, since the determiners do not behave as unselective binders.

32

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

As far as adverbs of quantification such as always are concerned, Chierchia analyzes them in the following way. First of all, the meaning of an adverb D' is derived from the meaning of the corresponding determiner D. D' can be defined as below: (73)

D'(A)(B) = D(!A)(![A;CB)) where the type of A and B is up, C is the closure operatorS, ; stands for dynamic conjunction 6, and! is defined as an operator over sets of sets of cases7

The adverb functions as a relation between update functions. The satisfaction sets of two updates (sets of cases relative to which they hold) are dynamically conjoined while closing off the right argument. This is analogous to the process of existential closure of the nuclear scope in DRT. The adverb then quantifies in a static way over the resulting sets. Consider the following example and its resulting meaning (cf. Chierchia 1992): (74) (75)

When a man is in the bathtub he always sings a love song VC[3x(man(x) & in the bathtub(x) & Vc]-+ 3x[man(x) & in the bathtub(x) & 3y[love song(y) & sing(x,y)] &

veil

Chierchia notes that his approach has no difficulty in predicting the right truth conditions for Heim's (1990) problem of the indistinguishable participants. Reconsider (67): (67)

If a bishop meets another man he blesses him

The meaning of this sentence will be the one in (76): (76)

Vc[3x3y[bishop(x) & man(y) & meet(x,y) & Vc]-+ 3x3y[bishop(x) & man(y) & meet(x,y) & bless(x,y) &

Veil

So, when a bishop meets another bishop, there will be two cases that satisfy the antecedent and therefore, two blessings are required for (67) to be true. So far Chierchia's theory accounts in

The Semantics of NPs

33

an elegant way for symmetric readings of donkey-sentences. At this point the question arises how asymmetric readings are obtained. In the above we have seen that focal stress is one of the contextual factors that play an important role in obtaining asymmetric readings. Accordingly, Chierchia assumes that the asymmetric readings are obtained by associating the adverb of quantification with an element selected from the if-clause that constitutes the topic. This way of letting the adverb quantify selectively over the topic through access to the index of this topic, is obtained by type shifting the antecedent from a dynamic formula into a dynamic property. Chierchia's example is given in (77): (77)

When Mary lends a book to A STUDENT, he usually returns it with insightful comments (while when she lends one to a collegue, he returns it with narrow minded criticisms)

By the type shift we get (78b) as the meaning of the when-clause instead of (78a); (78b) gives us the wanted property, namely the property that u has just in case u is a book lent to a student by Mary. (78)

a. b.

>"p3x3y[book(x) & student(y) & lend(m,x,y) &

Vp]

>..u[>..p3y[book(u) & student(y) & lend(m,u,y) & vpll

The indexed adverb of quantification mostn can then be defined as follows. (79)

mostn(A)(B) = most"(AU[nAJ)(AUlnBJ), where most" is either most + or mostO

Where do the two different determiners most come from? Chierchia observes that certain closed determiners are ambiguous between what he calls a strong and a weak reading (I am afraid, though, that these terms are somewhat confusing, so I will avoid them. Instead, I will refer to the strong reading as the everyreading). This phenomenon was discussed in the previous

34

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

subsection on Heim's (1990) article (examples (42) and (60» and is illustrated in (80) and (81) once again: (80) (81)

Every man who has a dime will put it in the meter Every man that owned a slave owned its offspring

The statement in (81) clearly requires every man to own the offspring of all of his slaves to be true. For (80), on the other hand, it suffices that every man in the possession of one or more dimes puts one of his dimes in the meter for the sentence to be true (cf. Schubert and Pelletier 1989). In order to account for this apparent ambiguity of certain closed determiners Chierchia proposes two different definitions: (82)

a. b.

D+(A)(B) = D(>..u-l-A(u»(>..u-l-[A(u);B(u)]) DO(A)(B) = D( >.. u -l-A( u»( >.. u[every'(A( u) )(B( u»]) where D = every, most, ...

One important thing to notice is that only the a-variant preserves the property of Conservativity, one of the basic constraints on possible determiner denotations (cf. § 1.3). In (83) this universal is defined for dynamic determiners, and it is obvious that only (82a) is dynamically conservative. (83)

D'(A)(B)

=

D'(A)(A;B), where A;B

=

>..u[A(u);B(u)]

In order to save Conservativity as a universal for all determiners (in all their readings) Chierchia assumes that in fact dynamic determiners are not ambiguous after all, but all universally defined by (82a). As a consequence we need an account that can explain the every-reading of donkey-sentences. This is where E-type pronouns enter the picture again. Chierchia argues that if one recognizes that pronouns can play a double role (on the one hand as bound variables and on the other hand as E-type pronouns), then the every-reading can be explained. The general idea is, as was already pointed out at the beginning of this subsection, to resort to the E-type strategy in case the bound variable strategy

The Semantics of NPs

35

fails to give the right anaphoric links or the right readings for determiners. I will not discuss the details of this proposal.

3. Strong readings of indefinites and other weak NPs 3.0 Introduction The previous section is not to be considered anything more than a brief sketch of an ongoing discussion on the nature of indefinites in connection with anaphora and binding; in fact, the whole discussion is based upon the behaviour of a on the one hand and every on the other. As soon as other determiners are examined, things become even more complicated. One way of viewing standard DRT and DPL is that they interpret singular anaphora outside the scope of their antecedent by extending the antecedent's scope. These scope principles work only for singular anaphora, however, and fail for plural anaphoric NPs (cf. Van der Does 1996). Van der Does offers an analysis that interprets these anaphora in a uniform way as generalized quantifiers which are contextually restricted by material inherited from their antecedent. Suppose that we analyze indefinites as existential quantifiers after all, then we have to account for the fact that even in simple main clauses indefinites do not always get an existential reading. Indefinites can also get a referential (or specific) reading or a generic reading, for example. These strong readings are a problem for classical DRT as well. As Heim (1982) puts it: "Leaving the matter unresolved, let me conclude that the exceptional behavior of specific indefinites remains as puzzling under the assumptions of this study as it is from the point of view of the standard quantificational analysis of indefinites. To make matters worse, we find that some of the exceptional behavior of specific indefinites is shared by generic indefinites." (Heim 1982, p.22S)

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

36

Kamp (1981) discusses neither referential indefinites (which he takes to be 'wide scope' readings for indefinites) nor generic indefinites: "Generics, however, are among the most recalcitrant constructions known to me. They will not be treated in this paper." (Kamp 1981, p.31) I think that the discussion about the exceptional behaviour of indefinites on their strong readings should be extended to other weak NPs on their strong readings. NPs such as many N, for instance, often have been argued to be ambiguous between a weak and a strong reading. Here, the intended strong reading is not characterized as specific or generic, but as proportional or partitive. In the remainder of this section, different kinds of strong readings for weak NPs will be discussed.

3.1 Referential indefinites Fodor and Sag (1982) present evidence for a lexical ambiguity in indefinite NPs, contra the theory that claims that indefinites are always quantifiers. The latter theory takes any ambiguities in the interpretation of indefinite NPs to follow from scope ambiguities, which are shared by all quantified expressions. Fodor and Sag provide a number of arguments in favour of the hypothesis that the difference between a quantificational and a referential reading for indefinites reflects a semantic ambiguity, over and above contextual scope ambiguities. Consider for instance sentence (84): (84)

A cousin of mine is pregnant

Besides the quantified reading, the indefinite NP in (84) can also be interpreted as a referring expression, comparable to a proper name or a demonstrative; the quantificational reading just states that the set of pregnant cousins of mine is not empty, whereas the referential reading refers to a specific individual, for instance Jackie. Below I will sum up briefly the arguments Fodor and Sag

The Semantics of NPs

37

present in favour of this ambiguity hypothesis. Firstly, there are a number of factors that favour either a referential or a quantificational reading of an indefinite NP. 1. There is a correlation between descriptive richness of the indefinite and a referential interpretation. For instance, the indefinite in sentence (85) is more likely to be understood referentially than the one in (86).

(85) (86)

A sister of Jackie who lives in New Zealand was robbed last night A woman was robbed last night

2. Topicalization and Left Dislocation of an indefinite give rise to a referential interpretation, as illustrated in sentence (87), borrowed from Fodor and Sag: (87)

A Frenchman that I met in Tokyo, I went and had dinner with (him) in New York last week

3. Use of the colloquial non-demonstrative this or that leads to a referential reading, witness (88): (88)

You know, I met this woman last night who wore a turban on her head

4. Existential there-sentences favour a quantificational reading of the indefinite. (89)

There is a heron eating the goldfishes

5. Modifiers like certain and particular go with a referential interpretation of an indefinite. (90)

A certain cat has eaten all the cheese

It is important to keep in mind that the above factors only favour

one of the readings; they do not unequivocally give rise to such a reading. Existential there-sentences, for example, normally favour a

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

38

quantificational reading for the indefinite, as was pointed out in 4. Nevertheless, they are perfectly compatible with the factors mentioned in 3 and 5, which both lead to a referential reading; this is illustrated in (91) and (92): (91) (92)

There was this guy asking for my ID There is a certain cat eating all the cheese

The question arises what the status of these indefinites is. They seem to be referential in that the speaker has a specific individual in mind, but it is also obvious that these individuals are introduced, that is new in the domain of discourse, and that is the reason they appear in an existential sentence. A second argument that Fodor and Sag provide in favour of their ambiguity hypothesis is that indefinites exhibit some rather unusual scope properties. As a matter of fact, they can have wider scope readings than other quantified expressions. Consider for instance the following sentences: (93) (94) (95)

Many linguists love every student in our department Many linguists love a student in our department Many linguists love that student

In (93) the preferred reading is the one on which the first quantifier takes scope over the second; however, in (94) the indefinite can easily take wide scope over many. One can either argue that a is a quantifier that favours wide scope here, like for instance each, or account for the wide scope interpretation by acknowledging that the indefinite has a referential interpretation which is not involved in scope interactions, like the referential expression that student in (95). A referential interpretation entails a maximally wide scope quantifier interpretation. Similar observations about scope properties of indefinites can be made with respect to higher verbs. Another observation concerns the fact that indefinites, unlike all other quantifiers, can escape so-called scope islands. For instance, if-clauses function as scope islands for quantified expressions. Consider (96)-(98), all taken from Fodor and Sag:

The Semantics of NPs

(96) (97) (98)

39

If each friend of mine from Texas had died in the fire, I would have inherited a fortune If no friend of mine from Texas had died in the fire, I would have inherited a fortune If a friend of mine from Texas had died in the fire, I would have inherited a fortune

Sentences (96) and (97) cannot mean that for each/no friend of mine from Texas it holds that if he or she had died in the fire, I would have inherited a fortune, which means that the quantifiers each and no can only have scope within the if-clause and not outside. Sentence (98), on the other hand, can very well be understood as a statement about a particular friend of mine from Texas. If indefinites are always quantifiers, then this would mean that they behave very exceptionally as far as scope properties are concerned. However, if we assume that indefinites can also get a referential interpretation, there is nothing exceptional about them. Finally, Fodor and Sag present two observations concerning the semantic ambiguity hypothesis of indefinites. The first one is that an indefinite that escapes from an island has only maximally wide scope; it does not exhibit the full range of scope relations that one would expect. Take for instance sentence (99), borrowed from Fodor and Sag: (99)

If a student in the syntax class cheats on the exam, every professor will be fired

The theory that a is a quantifier that escapes scope islands predicts three readings for this sentence, whereas only two are available. According to one interpretation of (99), there is one particular student in the syntax class, for instance the queen's son, who is such that if he cheats on the exam, every professor will be fired. The other interpretation is that it holds for any student in the syntax class that if he or she cheats on the exam, every professor will be fired. But the intermediate reading on which for every professor there is a different but particular student such that if that student cheats on the exam the professor concerned will be fired, is missing.

40

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

According to Fodor and Sag, this missing reading is a clear indication that the indefinite cannot be a quantifier that escapes the island; on the contrary, it is like any other referential expression in that it is not involved in scope relations. 8 The second observation, which is about VP deletion, also points into that direction. Sag (1976) and Williams (1977) showed that a VP cannot be deleted if its antecedent contains a quantified expression whose scope is wider than the VP. For example, neither continuation in (100b) is possible if each is taken to have wide scope over Sandy thinks (the sentences are again from Fodor and Sag): (100)

a. b.

Sandy thinks that someone loves each of my friends Chris does too Chris thinks that someone does too

Indefinites that can get a referential reading, however, are not subject to this condition, as will be clear from (101) in which either continuation is compatible with a belief of Sandy about a particular person that was beaten at chess. (101)

a.

b.

Sandy thinks that every student in our class plays chess better than a guy I beat this mornmg Chris does too Chris thinks that every student does too

Again, the indefinite behaves like a referential term and not as a quantified expression here. I think that the arguments Fodor and Sag present convincingly show that indefinites can get a referential reading. But I do not agree with them that we are dealing with a lexical ambiguity here. Instead, I suppose that the ambiguity is a matter of different readings, triggered by syntactic factors. That does not mean, however, that I go back to an approach that takes any ambiguities in the interpretation of indefinite NPs to follow from scope ambiguities. In my opinion, a referential reading for an indefinite is not a matter of scope. An indefinite that gets a referential reading

The Semantics of NPs

41

actually behaves as a referential expression, also with respect to scope relations. Thus I stay very close to Fodor and Sag, although I deny that an arbitrary lexical ambiguity is involved. I take the referential reading to be an instantiation of a strong reading, and the other reading a weak, existential one.

3.2 The partitive reading of cardinal NPs It has been observed in the literature that quantifiers such as some, many, few, and three can have different readings, one of which can be referred to as existential or weak, the other one as partitive or strong. For instance, Milsark (1977), following Postal (1966), provides the following sentence in which the two readings of some are exemplified.

(102)

Some unicorns appeared on the horizon

On its existential reading, some is unstressed (sm). On its partitive reading, the meaning of some can be paraphrased as some, but not others and hence, it is next to synonymous with some of the in (103): (103)

Some of the unicorns appeared on the horizon

In a simple there-sentence only the existential reading is possible, as (104) shows: (104)

There exist some unicorns

In (104) the postverbal subject some unicoms cannot possibly get a partitive reading; (104) cannot mean that it holds for some of the unicorns that they exist, as opposed to others. Similar observations have been made with respect to other determiners, such as many. Milsark (1977) gives the following two sentences, where (105) unambiguously yields the existential reading, while (106) forces the partitive reading.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

42

(105) (106)

There are many unicorns Many unicorns are sneaky

In (106) many is interpreted with respect to the set of unicorns, whereas in (lOS) many is interpreted with respect to something else. These two sentences perfectly illustrate two principal generalizations formulated by Milsark: that only weak NPs are allowed in there-sentences and that individual level predicates may only be predicated of strong NPs. 9 According to Milsark, these two principles give rise to a predicate restriction in there-sentences: only stage level predicates are allowed, individual level predicates are blocked. This can be witnessed in (107) and (108): (107) (108)

* There are many unicorns sneaky There are many unicorns sick

So, in (105) the there-sentence only allows the weak reading of many, and in (106) the individual level predicate only allows the strong reading of many. But if individual level predicates may only occur with strong NPs and strong NPs are blocked in theresentences, then individual level predicates are blocked in theresentences as well (cf. (107». Clearly, many is ambiguous between a weak, existential and a strong, partitive reading. On both readings, however, many is strongly context-dependent in that the actual number that counts as many depends on contextual factors (cf. De Hoop and Sola, to appear). Westerstahl (1985) defines many in four different ways within a generalized quantifier framework. Consider sentences of the form Many As are B (e.g. (106». The first definition (109) holds when the frequency of Bs in A exceeds a certain 'normal' frequency of Bs. (109)

II manylll(N) = {X~M: IXnNI > k.INI} where 0< k < 1 and M stands for 'model'; that is the given universe E

The context determines the value of k. Consider for instance sentence (110):

43

The Semantics of NPs (110)

Many cats in this city are black

Suppose k= Iblack cats in MI/!cats in MI and suppose furthermore that Icats in MI =200, Icats in this city I =60, Iblack cats in MI =50 and Iblack cats in this city I =20. In this situation k= 1/4 and if we apply the definition given in (109), sentence (110) will come out as true in the given model. Another way to define many is to take the frequency of Bs in M as the normal frequency of B: (111)

IlmanyI12(N) = {X~M: IXnNI > IXI/IMI.IAI}

What is measured here is the number of As that are Bs relative to the number of Bs in the universe. If we reconsider the situation given above and add Iindividuals in MI =1000 and Iblack individuals in MI =400, then sentence (110) will be falsified. A third way to define many is to abstract away from all comparison: many is many if a certain number n is involved (the exact value of n being dependent on the model). (112)

II many 113(N)

=

{X~M: IXnN I ~ n}

For the situation given above it holds that sentence (110) gets the value true if ~20. Finally, many can be defined in such a way that IB I is compared instead of IA I. An example where this actually happens is sentence (113) which is considered to be equivalent to (114): (113) (114)

Many Scandinavians have won the Nobel prize III literature Many winners of the Nobel prize in literature are Scandinavians

In (113) the number of Scandinavian Nobel prize winners is compared to the total number of Nobel prize winners. The context again determines the normal frequency. The fourth definition of many is given in (115): (115)

II manyI14(N)

{X~M: IXnNI > k.IXI}

44

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

These four definitions of many show convincingly that many is heavily context-dependent. The question is, of course, whether we should indeed characterize the different readings of many as semantic ambiguities. That is, do these manYb manh, etc. really exist or do they just represent different readings of one and the same many. For instance, only manY2 and manY3 are symmetric, which means weak. On the other hand, manh and many4 violate the universal constraint on determiners that is known as Conservativity (cf. §1.3). Therefore, let us concentrate on many]> which gives the strong, partitive meaning of many and manY] that represents the weak, symmetric reading. This is exactly what Partee (1988) does, arguing that many is really ambiguous between these two readings, in her terms the proportional and the cardinal reading. She notes that Barwise and Cooper's doubts and internal disagreement about whether all weak determiners, and in particular many and few, have the intersection property (cf. §1.5) can be explained by the assumption that a true ambiguity is involved. As was pointed out above, only the weak many turns out to be symmetric, or equivalently, intersective. Consider the diagnostic test -sentence that is used to determine whether a determiner is symmetric or not, applied to many: (116)

Many linguists are women iff many women are linguists

Partee notes that the tendency toward judging this equivalency invalid correlates with a tendency toward reading the first clause proportionally. In fact, this more or less holds for all weak determiners in Dutch. That is, weak determiners that appear in the standard subject position in Dutch always tend to get a strong reading. They hardly allow a weak reading (cf. Reuland 1988, Rullmann 1989). This can be seen in the following examples: (117) (118) (119)

Enkele eenhoorns aten gras some unicorns ate/were eating grass Eenhoorns aten gras unicorns ate/were eating grass Een eenhoorn at gras a unicorn ate/was eating grass

The Semantics of NPs

45

The subjects in (117)-(119) tend to have a partitive, a generic, and a specific reading respectively, although the predicates are stage level and therefore prefer an existential reading in English. Thus, the observation of Partee with respect to the behaviour of many in standard subject position in English resembles a tendency in Dutch that holds for all weak determiners in standard subject position, namely that they usually get a strong reading. The proportional/ cardinal ambiguity of many and few seems to be an instantiation of a more general strong/weak ambiguity that holds for all weak determiners. As far as many and few are concerned, Milsark assumes that they share their strong, partitive readings with some and the cardinal numbers. Partee, however, wants to make a principled distinction between the cardinals on the one hand and many and few on the other. Partee supposes that the strong/weak ambiguity of cardinals can be explained in terms of the presupposition of non-emptiness of the set to which the determiner meaning is applied (the set denoted by the common noun or by the partitive phrase) but that many and few are ambiguous in a way cardinal numbers cannot be (many and few distinguish proportional and cardinal readings). One of her arguments is that partitive cardinals, such as three of the cats are symmetric, or intersective, as opposed to many of the cats. However, three of the or some of the can only be defined as symmetric if defined at all (i.e. the set the noun refers to must not be empty). Consider the equivalency in (120): (120)

Some of the linguists are women iff some of the women are linguists

One other question is whether the equivalency holds in a situation in which all women turn out to be linguists. That is, must the second part of (120) mean that not all women are linguists or is that only an implication, and not part of the meaning? Furthermore, under this analysis some of the is taken to be a complex determiner. One could also argue that some is a simple determiner here and of the linguists a complex common noun (cf. Barwise and Cooper 1981). In that case, the equivalency in (121) should hold, and I think it does.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

46

(121)

Some of the linguists are women iff some women are (part) of the linguists

But on this analysis, perhaps many comes out as symmetric too: (122)

Many of the linguists are women iff many women are (part) of the linguists

Here we have a difficult case, as the second many appears to be Westerstahl's manY4 which we know does not satisfy Conservativity. A violation of Conservativity makes it problematic to maintain the definition of symmetry; symmetry can only be proved to be equivalent to intersectivity if Conservativity is assumed (cf. Zwarts 1983). I will return to this issue in chapter 3. Partee provides some further support for the ambiguity of many and few. For instance, in adjectival positions only the cardinal reading of many arises. Compare the constructions in (123): (123)

a. b.

the many women the three women

Hoeksema (1983) argues that numerals as well as many and few are not determiners after all, but adjectives, not only because of constructions like (123), but also because many and few form comparatives and superlatives, are used in predicative positions, can be modified by degree expressions such as very, and are used in the context as Adj as. In Dutch, the adjectival behaviour of veel 'many' is sometimes reflected by adjectival inflection. Take for instance (124): (124)

En de ongerepte stilte klonk als gonzen van veIe kleine vleugelen te zaam and the virgin silence sounded like buzzing of many + infl little wings together

[Dutch]

In this example, veel 'many' bears adjectival inflection and it definitely can only get the cardinal reading. As (125) shows, inflection gives rise to oddness if a cardinal reading is not possible.

The Semantics of NPs

(125)

?

Vele eenhoorns zijn intelligent many + infl unicorns are intelligent

47 [Dutch[

Therefore, unlike Hoeksema and like Partee, I assume that many, few, and the cardinals can be adjectives, without concluding that they always are. This means that there is a cardinal many that can be used as an adjective and patterns with the cardinal numbers in this sense. One more argument that Partee gives for the ambiguity of many and few is what she dubs 'Huettner's test'. This test is illustrated in (126) and (127): (126) (127)

There are few unicorns in the garden Few unicorns are black

Sentence (126) can be true in a situation where all unicorns are in the garden (but there are few unicorns anyway). Sentence (127), however, cannot be true in a situation where all unicorns are black. This is due to the individual level predicate, which triggers a partitive reading on few. Note that this test is not applicable to many, since many is compatible with 'all' on both readings. In my opinion, the same holds for numerals. Partee sketches a possible analysis of the two readings of many and few within DRT. The cardinal, adjectival reading would follow if they are taken to be indefinites, composed of a zero determiner and an adjective. The strong, quantificational reading would be captured if they are treated as operators, on a par with strong determiners such as every, most, etc. Thus, given (128) we get the DRS under (129) for the cardinal, and the one under (130) for the proportional reading of many: (128)

Many unicorns appeared on the horizon

48

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation (129) X

unicorns (X) many(X) appeared on the horizon(X) Truth conditions: there is (was) a group of unicorns whose cardinality is many and which appeared on the horizon. lO

(130) X

unicorns (X)

MANY

appeared on the horizon(X)

Diesing (1990), who also works within a DRT framework, gives a similar analysis for all cardinals. She argues that in addition to indefinites with no quantificational force of their own, a second type of indefinites is needed with quantificational force. She follows Milsark's strong/weak distinction for weak determiners and does not make any distinction between many and few on the one hand and numerals on the other. In fact, this is more in accordance with my own intuitions. I would like to claim that all cardinals can have either a weak, existential reading, or a strong, partitive reading. I do not want to make a principled distinction between many/few and numerals, which should be understood as making no principled distinction between a proportional and a partitive reading. Actually, my main argument to treat many/few and numerals similarly, is their similar behaviour in Dutch there-sentences, but I will not elaborate on that until chapter 3. For the time being, I will consider the partitive reading of cardinals (including many and few) to be an instantiation of a strong reading on a weak NP, and will not yet decide whether this ambiguity in reading should be reflected in the semantic definition of these cardinals or not.

The Semantics of NPs

49

3.3 The generic reading of indefinites Another instantiation of a strong reading on indefinites is the socalled generic reading. English bare plurals and indefinites containing the indefinite article a can receive either an existential or a generic reading, as observed by Carlson (1977); consider (131 )-(134): (131) (132) (133) (134)

Unicorns were eating grass A unicorn was eating grass Unicorns are white A unicorn is white

Carlson notes that not all predicates allow both a generic and an existential reading for indefinites. In (131) and (132), the stage level predicate favours an existential reading on the indefinite subject, whereas the individual level predicate in (133) and (134) leads to a generic reading. The two different readings can be accounted for in a DRT framework if one assumes that in (131) and (132), the indefinites appear in the nuclear scope and get their existential reading through existential closure, whereas in (133) and (134) the variables introduced by the indefinites in the restrictive clause are bound by an implicit generic operator (cf. Gerstner and Krifka 1987, Kratzer 1989, Diesing 1990). Thus, (131) and (133) could be logically represented as follows: (131') (133')

3xl unicorns(x) & eating grass(x) 1 GenJI unicorns(x)JI are white(x) II

If we take generic readings to be strong readings, then the above observations are perfectly consonant with Milsark's principle which states that individual level predicates necessarily trigger strong readings on their subjects. It is rather uncontroversial to analyze generics as strong, the more so as in several languages such as French and Arabic genericity of NPs can only be represented by strong NPs (see also De Swart 1992). A special case is constituted by generic cardinals (cf. Hoeksema 1983, Partee 1988). Examples are given in (135) and (136):

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

50 (135) (136)

Ten boys can't form a soccer team One swallow does not make a summer

Evidently, the cardinals in these constructions receive a weak, collective reading. Hoeksema analyzes them as adjectives interpreted as cardinality predicates of groups. This is in accordance with the observation that in Dutch, veel 'many' bears adjectival inflection when it takes up a generic cardinal reading. (137)

Vele handen maken licht werk many +infl hands make light work

[Dutch]

If we conclude that the cardinals are in fact adjectives here, then the genericity of these constructions must be due to the zero determiner, just like in the case of bare plurals. In Partee's analysis, generic cardinals construct a DRS as the one in (138) for sentence (137).

(138) X

hands (X) many(X)

GEN

make light work(X)

Thus, the numeral gets a weak, cardinal reading, but the NP as a whole gets a strong, generic reading. Recently, the distinction between existential and generic readings for bare plurals has extensively been examined by Kratzer (1989) and Diesing (1990). Their theories come up for discussion in chapter 3. I would like to regard the existential-generic dichotomy as another instantiation of a general weak-strong ambiguity of weak NPs.

3.4 Concluding remarks After witnessing these different instantiations of strong readings on weak NPs, one might wonder whether these instantiations can all

The Semantics of NPs

5]

be analyzed in terms of one and the same property. En\; (1991), for instance, proposes to analyze both referential and partitive readings for weak NPs as specific. In an earlier version of En\; (1991), she furthermore notes that "for reasons I do not understand fully, generic NPs or NPs in the scope of a generic operator always behave as if they are specific". The problems with En\;'s analysis are twofold: firstly, there are differences between partitivity and referentiality that are lost if both are assigned the same label; secondly, there are correspondences between partitivity and referentiality on the one hand and genericity on the other that En\; fails to account for. I will use the notion strong reading which captures referential, partitive, generic, and generic collective readings of weak NPs. In environments where syntactic factors trigger strong readings on weak NPs, we find support for the use of strong reading as a comprehensive term. For instance, individual level predicates trigger strong readings on their subjects (Milsark 1977). In (139)(142) the individual level predicates evoke all possible strong readings. I I (139) (140)

(141) (142)

A friend of mine is a paleontologist [referential] Two fishes are black [partitive] Fishes are vertebrates [generic] Three fossils are more expensive than two [generic collective]

One other such context is constituted by object -scrambling in Dutch. Scrambling an object into the position before an adverb triggers all possible strong readings, as is illustrated in (143)-(146): (143)

(144)

referential reading: dat de politie een kraker gisteren opgepakt heeft [Dutch] that the police a squatter yesterday arrested has partitive reading: dat de politie twee krakers gisteren opgepakt heeft that the police two squatters yesterday arrested has

52

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation (145)

(146)

generic reading: dat de politie krakers altijd oppakt that the police squatters always arrests generic collective reading: dat de politie tien krakers altijd oppakt that the police ten squatters always arrests

I think these facts convincingly show that certain contexts trigger strong readings on weak NPs, where strong can be referential, partitive, generic, or generic collective, dependent on the nature of the determiner, the type of predicate and other syntactic factors (such as the choice of the adverb in (143)-(146». I do not mean that an explanation for the fact that syntactic factors trigger certain readings should be necessarily syntactic. In chapter 2 I will claim that the explanation of the correlation between individual level predicates and strong readings on their subjects should be explained in terms of a semantic analysis. Thus, I take the occurrence of an individual level predicate to be a syntactic environment that triggers a strong reading on the subject, although the explanation for this effect lies in a semantic principle. Clearly, the reason we call these readings strong is because they pattern with strong NPs in syntactic behaviour. Accordingly, strong, definite NPs can scramble freely in Dutch. In the next two chapters analyses will be given for this relation between scrambling and interpretation and for the relation between individual level predicates and interpretation.

4.

Conclusion

In this chapter the semantic status of NPs was focussed upon, though not at all exhaustively. In the first section the view was taken that all NPs must be seen as generalized quantifiers. The exceptional behaviour of indefinites led certain linguists to advocate a different analysis for indefinites within the framework of Discourse Representation Theory, which was introduced in section 2. This theory, however, has its own problems and in particular the so-called proportion problem. Therefore, other theories have been developed which again treat indefinites as

The Semantics oj NPs

53

quantifiers and account for their dynamic behaviour in an alternative way. Independently of these considerations, the problem of different readings on weak NPs has to be accounted for. Certain strong readings on indefinites constitute a problem for all theories. The question is whether we should take these readings to indicate a lexical ambiguity in weak NPs or not. I assume that this is not the case. At least, it cannot be an unconditioned or "real" ambiguity as the different readings arise as the result of syntactic factors, although the ambiguity itself is semantic in character. In the next chapter I will go into the question of how the apparent connection between syntactic environments and different interpretations of NPs can be accounted for. In particular, a hypothesis will be developed concerning the relation between strong and weak readings of NPs on the one hand and type of Case assignment on the other hand.

54

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

NOTES 1. Barbara Partee pointed out to me that properties in a full intensional theory are in fact type , really being the type of sets. In dealing with purely extensional fragments as I am doing here, however, it is quite common to speak uniform ally of properties.

2. In chapter III, Heim (1982) decides to regard existential closure as a genuinely semantic rather than a construal phenomenon, so that existential closure is eliminated from the construal component and the interpretation rules for operators are revised. 3. The ill-formedness holds under the reading where her refers to the wife of every married man. 4. The cup operator or current case.

v

in

v Q'.

applies the value of

Q'.

to the actual

5. cB = t 1B ; t i-sequences 'close off all active quantifiers in an update function. 6. A;B = Ap[A('B(p))] The cap operator unselectively abstracts over all the discourse markers free in 8 for any formula 8. This means that the denotation of e.g. A[ove(x,y) is the set of assignments to the discourse markers that make [ove(x,y) true; this set is called the satisfaction set of [0 ve(x,y). A

7. For any such set A, fA represents the singletons in A: !A = Ac[A(c)]. In fact, this provides us with the possibility to quantify over cases in an indirect way (In OTT, there are no variables ranging over cases), by identifying cases with their singleton sets. 8. It has been argued in the literature that intermediate readings do exist if the indefinite is in the scope of another quantifier, as in (i) (cf. Ruys 1992, Reinhart 1995): (i) Every professor j will rejoice if a (certain) student of his j cheats on the exam. would like to maintain that we are dealing with a referential reading of the indefinite here, although the referentiality is

The Semantics of NPs

55

embedded in the scope of the universal quantifier. 9. The term individual level predicate is borrowed from Carlson (1977). Individual level predicates quantify over individuals; they denote permanent properties. Stage level predicates, on the other hand, quantify over situations, i.e. spatiotemporal slices of individuals; they denote temporary properties, stages. 10. Plural individuals are regarded as entities, cf. Link (1983). 11. The different strong readings put between brackets in (139)(142) are not the only possible strong readings, of course. The NP two fishes in (140), for instance, can also get a referential reading and the subject in (139) might even get a generic reading. The crucial point is that none of the subjects can get a weak, existential reading, due to the individual level predicate.

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Chapter 2

The hypothesis

o.

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to develop a hypothesis about the relation between type of Case and the interpretation of object NPs. A brief introduction into the theory of Case within the framework of generative grammar will be provided in section 1. In section 2, two analyses will be examined that are based upon a relation between Case and (in)definiteness in existential sentences, to wit Safir (1982) and Belletti (1988). Both analyses will be rejected, but Belletti's general idea concerning a correlation between two types of objective Case and the interpretation of NPs in the sense that one type of Case gives rise to a strong reading, whereas the other type cooccurs with a weak reading, will be preserved. In section 3, I will argue in favour of the existence of two types of structural Case, one of which is licensed at D-structure, the other at S-structure. The exact nature of these two types of structural Case will be discussed. Contrary to what is normally assumed, I will argue that inherent objective Case is not related to theta-assignment (and that this distinguishes it from lexical, oblique Case), but is a structural Case, more specifically a structural default Case, licensed at D-structure. I will call this type of Case weak structural Case to distinguish it from strong structural Case, which is licensed at S-structure.

57

58

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

The hypothesis that will subsequently be presented in the section 4 relates strong Case to a generalized quantifier type for NPs, whereas objects that bear weak Case are interpreted as part of the predicate. In section 5 some discussion about the relation between syntax and semantics will be presented. I will take the view that this relation is interactive, rather than a mapping from syntax to semantics.

1.

Case theory in generative grammar

1.0 Introduction In the framework of generative grammar two classes of subsystems of Universal Grammar (UG) can be distinguished (cf. Chomsky 1981), namely subcomponents of the rule system on the one hand, including the lexicon, syntactic components, a phonological component (PF) and a logical form component (LF), and subsystems of principles on the other hand. The system of grammar that is obtained in this way is highly modular, in the sense that the interaction of partially independent subtheories results in complex linguistic phenomena. Case theory is supposed to be one of the subsystems of principles, others include bounding theory, government theory, theta theory, binding theory, and control theory. These subsystems are closely related in various ways. For instance, Chomsky (1981) suggests that Case theory can be developed within the framework of government theory, and furthermore that Case theory and theta theory are closely interconnected. In this section the characteristics of Case theory within generative grammar will be briefly introduced.

1.1 Abstractness of Case A basic assumption of Case theory is that all languages are subject to a system of Case assignment, though only some languages contain morphological reflections of it. In English, for instance, no

59

The Hypothesis

morphological Case is visible on the subject or object NPs, unless they are realized as pronouns: (1) (2)

The professor likes these fishes She likes them

But in other languages, like Latin for example, nominative Case and accusative Case are visible on other NPs as well: (3)

Mercator pecuniam habet merchant NoM moneyACC has

/Latin}

Thus, in some languages Case is morphologically visible, whereas in others it is not, but the general assumption is that it is assigned in a uniform way independent of morphological realization. More concretely, nominative Case is assigned to the subject of a finite clause, objective Case to the object of a transitive verb, and oblique Case to the object of a preposition. Hence, Case theory is concerned with the assignment of (abstract) Case to elements that are in Case-marking positions.

1.2 The Case filter One basic principle of Case Theory is the so-called Case filter (cf. Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980, Chomsky 1981): (4)

CASE FILTER Every phonetically realized NP must be assigned (abstract) Case

Traditionally, several linguistic phenomena have been explained in terms of this Case filter. Two examples will illustrate this. Firstly, in nominalizations the noun assigns no Case. This would lead to ungrammaticality, if insertion of of would not save the construction from the Case filter. (5)

a. b.

* the destruction Baghdad the destruction of Baghdad

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60

Secondly, movement to the subject position (as in passive constructions) is derivative from the Case filter and the fact that passive morphology absorbs objective Case. (6)

a. b. * c. d.

Carol believes the story It is believed the story

The story is believed (by Carol) It is believed that Carol is a workaholic

The passive form of the verb believe can no longer assign objective Case to its object the story. Therefore, in order to escape the Case filter, the NP has to move to the subject position where it is assigned nominative Case by tensed 1°. The agent in a passive construction (that is, the subject of the active variant) can only be Case assigned by a preposition. Furthermore, if the object of the passive verb is a clause as in (6d), it can remain in object position, since it is not an NP and therefore not subject to the Case filter.

1.3 Case theory and theta theory Theta theory concerns the predicate logical notion argument of; it is about the relation between predicates and their arguments. These arguments are assigned thematic roles (= 8-roles) at Dstructure. The basic principle concerned with arguments and their thematic roles is known as the theta criterion, according to which each argument bears one and only one theta-role, and each thetarole is assigned to one and only one argument. Non-arguments do not receive theta-roles. This explains why (6d), as given above, is not a violation of the theta criterion, since it is a non-argument and traditionally, it is assumed that passive participles do not assign a theta-role to the subject position. But how can (6c) be grammatical? A thematic role is assigned to the object of the verb at D-structure. In the S-structure of (6c) this position is empty, whereas there is no 8-role assigned to the subject position, which is nevertheless occupied. This can be accounted for by reformulating the theta criterion in such a way that it applies to chains. A chain consists of an NP and the traces coindexed with that NP. Thus, in (6c) a chain is formed by the

The Hypothesis

61

subject NP and the trace in object position which gets exactly one theta-role, in compliance with the theta criterion. The same can be proposed for Case theory. The Case filter refers to chains instead of NPs; this implies that if a chain contains a phonetically realized NP, then Case must be assigned somewhere in that chain. For instance, the chain in (6c) gets an objective theta-role at D-structure and nominative Case at S-structure. This analysis in terms of chains and traces makes it possible to interpret D-structure as a sub-structure of S-structure. In that case only one level of representation is left (cf. Koster 1987).

1.4 Structural and inherent Case assignment In Chomsky (1981, p.170) the fundamental Case assigning rules are formulated as follows:

(7)

(i) (ii)

(iii) (iv) (v)

NP is nominative if governed by AGR NP is objective if governed by V with the subcategorization feature: NP (i.e., transitive) I NP is oblique if governed by P NP is genitive in [NP_X'] NP is inherently Case-marked as determined by properties of its [-N] governor

The Case assigned under (i)-(iv) is referred to as strnctural Case, as opposed to the inherent Case mentioned under (v). The latter is only needed for the double object construction in Chomsky (1981). Consider (8): (8)

Jackie gave Jane a book

According to Chomsky (1981), the indirect object Jane receives structural Case, whereas a book receives inherent Case. Structural Case is generally assumed to be independent of thematic roles; it is structurally assigned in a proper formal configuration. Inherent Case, on the other hand, is taken to be linked to thematic roles (and therefore assigned at D-structure).

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

62

Chomsky (1986) presents a revision of the Case theory outlined above. In the new version structural Case only includes objective and nominative Case, both assigned to S-structure positions. Inherent Case is assigned at D-structure and includes both oblique Case assigned by prepositions and genitive Case assigned by nouns and adjectives. Still, inherent Case is associated with theta marking while structural Case is not. 2 In this approach Chomsky has to distinguish between Case assignment and Case realization. In order to see why, consider (9): (9)

a. b. c.

the destruction Baghdad Baghdad's destruction the destruction of Baghdad

In (9a) the noun assigns inherent genitive Case to its complement at D-structure. But at S-structure, this genitive Case is realized in either the subject position (9b) or the complement position (9c). Genitive Case is realized morphologically by the possessive's in (9b) and by of in (9c). Chomsky (1986, p.194) formulates the following Unifonnity Condition: (10)

UNIFORMITY CONDITION If a is an inherent Case-marker, then a Case-marks NP if and only if a 8-marks the chain headed by NP

Case marking includes Case assignment and Case realization. The constructions in (9) satisfy the Uniformity Condition.

2.

Case and (in)definiteness in existential sentences

2.0 Introduction A main area for which a link between Case theory and (in)definiteness of NPs has been established from the start (cf. Safir 1982) is constituted by existential sentences. As we saw in chapter 1, § 1.5, existential sentences exhibit a definiteness restnction. In this section I discuss Safir's (1982, 1985) and Belletti's (1988) analyses of the definiteness restriction, both stated

The Hypothesis

63

in terms of Case theory. Both analyses turn out to be not as explanatory as they claim to be and they will be rejected as inadequate. One of Belletti's main points, however, that there is a correlation between type of Case and interpretation of NPs, will be maintained. No alternative analysis of existential sentences will be provided in this chapter. This is postponed until chapter 3.

2.1 Safir's Case inheritance analysis A lexical NP can receive Case either from a Case assigner or from another NP that already has Case. The latter possibility is referred to as Case inheritance. For instance, one might argue that in a Dutch passive such as (11) nominative Case is assigned to the empty subject and that Case is inherited by the NP de vis 'the fish' (cf. Koster 1987, chapter 5): (11)

dat e de katten de vis gevoerd werd that the cats the fish fed was "that the fish was fed to the cats"

[Dutch]

Following Chomsky (1981), the empty category and the VPinternal NP must be co-superscripted, which expresses the relation of the empty category to the associated NP, a relation that should be distinguished from the binding relation. This is reminiscent of assumptions applied to there-sentences: Chomsky (1981) assumes that there is coindexed with the post -verbal NP and shares features with it, specifically the feature 'number'. Safir (1982) argues that the definiteness restriction found in existential there-sentences correlates with contexts of Case inheritance. According to Safir, a 8-chain relates the expletive there, a non-argument that lacks a thematic role, to the thematic subject that is in VP-internal position. Safir assumes that Case must be inherited in a 8-chain. Consider the Dutch sentence (12) and its structure in (13): (12)

dat er een sneeuwklokje in de tuin bloeit [Dutch] that there a snow-drop in the garden blooms

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

64

(13)

that [s erj [vP [NP een sneeuwklokjeli in de tuin bloeitll

Expletive er and the VP-internal NP are coindexed for Case to be inherited. The 8-chain that is formed in (13) is exceptional in that an argument is not the highest member of the chain. Therefore, Safir calls this type of chain (that occurs only in precisely these Case inheritance contexts) an unbalanced 8-chain, and makes the generalization that the definiteness restriction is found in unbalanced 8-chains. The question is then why this should be so. One property of unbalanced 8-chains is that they seem to violate principle C of the binding theory, which states that Rexpressions must be free (cf. Chomsky 1981). The VP-internal subject in (12) is an R-expression. Hence, it should be free, which it is not as it is bound by the coindexed expletive in standard subject position. This suggests that somehow indefinite NPs escape a principle C violation. Safir stipulates that indefinite NPs escape principle C at S-structure: indefinite NPs are invisible to the binding conditions at S-structure, but they are subject to these conditions at LF, at which level the rule of Quantifier Raising (QR) has applied (cf. May 1977) which adjoins quantifiers to S, so that principle C is not violated anymore. Definite NPs (i.e. strong NPs), on the other hand, are for some reason visible to principle C at Sstructure, which accounts for the definiteness effect. Obviously, this line of reasoning is not very explanatory. Apart from this, some facts can be found that argue against the idea of Case inheritance per se as the relevant factor explaining the definiteness restriction, as was pointed out by Reuland (1985). One concerns the observation that existential constructions happen to exist in, for instance, German and Spanish, for which it can be shown that the VP-internal NP receives Case independently of the structural subject, although the definiteness restriction still shows up. Consider the German example in (14), where accusative Case is assigned to the thematic subject: (14)

Es gibt einen Fehler im Aufsatz it gives a mistakeACC in the essay

[Gemwnj

The Hypothesis

65

In Spanish it can also be shown that the thematic subject in an existential construction is assigned objective Case by the verb. The following pair of sentences is from Torrego (1982): (15)

(16)

Hay estaciones de metro en esa zona de la ciudad? [Spanish] there-are subway stations in that area of the city No las hay en esa zona, pero las hay muy cerca not them Acc there-are in this area, but them Acc there-are close by

In (15) there is no Case visible on the subject of the existential sentence, but in (16) the subject is replaced by a pronoun and this pronoun bears accusative Case. Safir actually notes the fact that constructions as in (14) and (16) are problematic for his theory, since there is no Case inheritance and therefore no unbalanced 8chain here, but he supposes that these constructions are idiomatic and language specific and that there is no need to treat them as counterexamples (cf. Safir 1987). Another observation that cannot be explained in terms of Case inheritance is that in Dutch an existential construction is possible in which the definiteness restriction applies to the indirect object instead of to the thematic subject. This is illustrated in (17)(18), borrowed from Reuland (1985): (17)

(18)

Ik vroeg of er de minister enigj*het plan beviel [Dutch] I asked if there the ministeroAT any/the pianNOM pleased Ik vroeg of er iemand/*de minister dat plan beviel [Dutch] I asked if there someone/the ministeroAT that plan NOM pleased

The structures in (17) and (18) are well-formed if either the thematic subject (cf. (17)) or the indirect object (cf. (18)) is indefinite. Obviously, a dative NP cannot inherit its Case from expletive er 'there' via a nominative Case chain, and hence the

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

66

definiteness restriction cannot be accounted for in terms of such a chain. Other arguments in Reuland (1985) against Safir's (1982) Case inheritance analysis bear a more theoretical character and will not be discussed at this point. In my judgement, observations given above plus the fact that Safir's (1982) analysis is not very explanatory from a theoretical point of view are sufficient reasons to reject an analysis along the lines of Case inheritance. 3

2.2 Belletti's partitive Case Belletti (1988) accounts for the definiteness restnction in a radically different way, although Case again plays an important role. She claims that the definiteness restriction in existential sentences is essentially a phenomenon concerning the nature of the object of unaccusative verbs. According to Belletti, unaccusative verbs have the capacity of inherently assigning partitive Case to their thematic object, although they lack the capacity of assigning structural accusative Case.4 This assumption is based on facts from Finnish. In Finnish existential sentences, the subject bears partitive Case, as is illustrated in (19): (19)

Poydiillii on kirjoja on the table is books PART "There are (some) books on the table"

[Finnish}

If Belletti is on the right track, the VP-internal subject in an existential sentence receives its Case directly from the ergative verb. This is partitive Case, the only Case ergative verbs can assign to their D-structure object. Partitive Case seems to be related to an indefinite reading on the NP, which can also be witnessed in other contexts such as (20)-(21):

(20)

Anne tapaa vieraita Anne meets guestsPART "Anne meets some guests"

[Finnish}

The Hypothesis

(21)

67

Anne tapaa vieraat Anne meets guestsAcC "Anne meets the guests"

Note that the transitive verb in (20)-(21) is capable of assigning either accusative or partitive Case to its direct object. With regard to the effect on the interpretation of the NPs, it will be clear that accusative Case goes with a definite reading, while partitive Case is connected to an indefinite interpretation. But what is the actual connection between partitive Case and indefiniteness? Belletti claims that partitive Case is only compatible with an indefinite interpretation, because this Case always has a meaning such as 'some of, 'part of a larger set'. This would explain the definiteness restriction in existential sentences. This point of view about the relation between the meaning associated with partitive Case and indefiniteness cannot possibly be correct (cf. De Hoop 1989). Firstly, it is not true that there is an incompatibility between partitive Case and a definite NP in Finnish. In traditional grammars (cf. Karlsson 1983), the alternation between a partitive object and an accusative object is attributed to two semantic distinctions, namely indefiniteness versus definiteness and irresultativity versus resultativity. An example of the latter distinction is found in (22)-(23): (22) (23)

Anne rakensi taloa Anne built house pART "Anne was building a/the house" Anne rakensi talon Anne built houseACC "Anne built a/the house"

[Finnish}

Note that the partitive object need not necessarily express indefiniteness, when the sentence is interpreted irresultatively. This becomes even more clear in the following example where the partitive Case bearing object contains the strong universal quantifier kaikki 'all':

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

68 (24)

Presidentti ampui kaikkia lintuja president shot allpART birds PART "The president shot at all birds"

[Finnish]

This runs counter to Belletti who actually argues that the fact that universal quantifiers are excluded in existential sentences is a direct consequence from their being intrinsically incompatible with partitive Case. Furthermore, Belletti's claim that a partitive meaning is only compatible with indefiniteness is rather controversial itself. Usually, partitivity is associated with definiteness rather than with indefiniteness. It has been argued in the literature (cf. lackendoff 1977, Barwise and Cooper 1981, Ladusaw 1982) that the embedded determiner in a partitive construction must be definite. The higher determiner does not have to be indefinite either. Partitive constructions with strong determiners such as each of the linguists and most of the linguists are perfectly well-formed. Besides, it became clear in the previous chapter that weak NPs on their partitive readings behave like strong NPs. Recall that cardinal determiners can vary between a weak (existential, cardinal) reading and a strong (partitive, proportional) reading. (25) (26)

There are many cats in the garden Many cats are in the garden

The unmarked reading of the subject NP in (26) is the partitive reading that can be paraphrased as many of the cats. This reading, however, is not possible for the subject NP of the existential sentence in (25) which means that only the subject in (26) can be construed as true partitive. This goes against Belletti's proposal, according to which the NP in (25) should get a partitive reading. Although much more can be said about the relation between partitivity and indefiniteness (cf. chapter 3, §3.5), it can at least be argued that the correlation between partitivity and indefiniteness as proposed in Belletti (1988) cannot be maintained and as a consequence Belletti's explanation for the definiteness restriction in existential sentences must be rejected. Yet, I would like to maintain her suggestion that there is a correlation between type of Case and the interpretation of NPs in

The Hypothesis

69

the sense that one type of Case leads to a weak reading, whereas the other gives rise to a strong reading. This hypothesis will be further developed in the remainder of this chapter. In the following section Case theory will be revised in such a way that two types of structural Case will be distinguished, strong and weak Case. In section 4 I will discuss the relation between these two types of structural Case and the interpretation of object NPs.

3.

Strong and weak Case

3.0 Introduction As we saw in the previous section, Belletti (1988) notes that in Finnish there are two possible Cases for an object NP. Depending on the reading associated with it, the object of a transitive verb will be marked either with accusative or with partitive Case. Consider another pair of examples of this phenomenon: (27)

(28)

Niien ihmisiii I see people PART "I see (some) people" Niien ihmiset I see peopleACC "I see the people"

[Finnish]

We also learned that Belletti furthermore proposes that un accusative verbs only lack the capacity to assign accusative Case, whereas their capacity to assign partitive Case is maintained. This can be illustrated by the following Finnish example with an un accusative verb: (29)

Syntyi vaikeuksia arose difficultiesPART

[Finnish]

Belletti adopts Chomsky'S (1986) Case theory and supposes that Finnish partitive Case is an inherent Case assigned to the object of both transitive and un accusative verbs. As was pointed out in the previous section, Belletti considers the fact that unaccusative verbs

70

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

are inherent Case assigners to provide a straightforward explanation for the definiteness effect in existential sentences. She links partitive Case assignment to indefiniteness of the NP because of examples such as (27)-(29). It is well-known that in a language such as English only a restricted class of (unaccusative) verbs is allowed in there-sentences (cf. Milsark 1974). According to the un accusative hypothesis the postverbal subject is in fact the object of the verb. If Belletti's hypothesis were correct, that unaccusatives inherently assign partitive Case to their thematic object, where partitive Case always selects an indefinite meaning, then an account would be provided for the fact that the definiteness effect appears in the object position of un accusative verbs. It has already become clear, though, that as far as it attempts to account for the definiteness restriction in existential sentences, Belletti's analysis must be rejected. This means that Belletti's claim about the "meaning" of partitive Case cannot be maintained. The question arises whether partitive Case in Finnish is indeed an inherent Case in the sense that it is related to a fixed erole. I will claim that it is not. All the same, there is a great deal of evidence that supports the idea that there are two different objective Cases, not only in Finnish but also in other languages. I will use the terms strong and weak for the two types of Case. Some examples will be presented in the next subsection. Morphological realizations of strong and weak objective Case are found in Finnish, as well as in Turkish and Inuit. The exact nature of weak Case will be the subject of section 3.2. Consequences of the proposed account are the topic of sections 3.3 and 3.4.

3.1 Two objective Cases Belletti (1988) bases her general proposal about transItIve verbs assigning either structural or inherent Case on Finnish transitive verbs that alternate between accusative Case assignment and partitive Case assignment, and assumes that partitive Case in Finnish is inherent. One more example is given below:

The Hypothesis

(30) (31)

Ostin leipaa I bought bread pART "I bought (some) bread" Ostin leivan I bought breadAcc "I bought the bread"

71

[Finnishj

Finnish is not the only language in which two different objective Cases are morphologically realized. In Turkish, for instance, direct objects optionally get an accusative Case marker and again a correlation between the type of objective Case and the interpretation of the NP can be observed: (32)

(33)

Ali kitabi okudu Ali bookACC read "Ali read the book" Ali kitap okudu Ali book read "Ali read a book"

[Turkishj

If we take the absence of the accusative Case marker in (33) to indicate that the NP bears inherent Case, then inherent Case goes with a weak reading, whereas structural Case triggers a strong reading. In Turkish, unlike Finnish, the distinction between the two types of objective Case only correlates with strength and weakness; no other feature such as resultativity or irresultativity of the predicate is involved. Accordingly, if the object NP contains for instance the Turkish universal quantifier her 'every', then the accusative Case marker is obligatory. In German, there are verbs which take two accusative objects. Den Besten (1982) supplies the following example:

(34)

da(3 er mich Deutsch gelehrt hat that he meACC GermanAcc taught has "... that he taught me German"

[Gennanj

When (34) is passivized, it can be shown that only one of the objects in (34) bears structural Case. That is, mich 'me' must be

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

72

classified as the structural accusative, since only mich can become the nominative subject of a passive, witness (35): (35)

da[3 ich von ihm Deutsch gelehrt worden bin[Gennan} that I by him GermanACC taught been have "... that I was taught German by him"

Turning the other object into a subject in a passive sentence leads to ungrammaticality: Deutsch 'German' cannot be the subject of a passive sentence. Therefore, in (34) Deutsch must be an inherent accusative. One might wonder whether in this example there is a correlation between inherent Case and the interpretation of the NP. It is not immediately obvious that the object Deutsch 'German' has a weak interpretation. Rather, it seems to be comparable to the objects of irresultatives which as we have seen are assigned partitive Case in Finnish (recall (22) and (24». Consider the Finnish examples (36) and (37), which are similar in this respect to the German example (34), with partitive Case on the objects again. (36) (37)

Puhumme suomea we speak Finnish pART "We speak Finnish" Opiskeletko suomea? you-study Finnish pART "Are you studying Finnish?"

[Finnish}

The question arises what the relation between Case and interpretation might be in these cases, in which no definiteness effect seems to be involved. In section 4 I will return to what is, in my opinion, the factor common to this kind of objects with partitive Case and indefinite objects with partitive Case. The so-called antipassive construction in Eskimo languages has often been taken to exhibit a definiteness restriction ( cf. Fortescue 1984, Sadock 1985). Antipassive sentences are characterized by a certain type of Case on the object (which has been called instmmental) and a so-called antipassive suffIX on the verb, which is generally taken to be a detransitivizing suffIX. Most ergative languages have an antipassive construction which

The Hypothesis

73

alternates with the transitive construction, in which the agent expression receives ergative and the patient expression absolutive Case. According to the definiteness analysis, the instrumental NP in an antipassive clause must be indefinite. The alternation is given in (38)-(39) (borrowed from Bittner 1988): (38)

(39)

Jaaku-p arnaq tuqut-p-as {Greenlandic Eskimo] Jacob ERG womanABS killind-3sERG/3s/ABS "Jacob killed the woman" Jaaku arna-mik tuqut-si-v-uq JacobABS woman INS killap_ind_3sABS "Jacob killed a woman"

Bittner (1988), however, argues against the definiteness analysis, since, as she demonstrates, the anti passive instrumental NP is not necessarily a weak NP, nor is the transitive absolutive necessarily a strong NP. For example, both (40) and (41) are perfectly acceptable: (40)

(41)

{Greenlandic Eskimo] ilin-nik suqutigi-nnig-p-uq you INS be-interested-inap _ind_3sABS "S /he is interested in you" Jaaku-p arnaq ataasir-piaq tuqut-p-aa Jacob ERG womanABS one-exactiYABS killind-3sERCi /3sABS "J acob killed exactly one woman"

In (40) we have a definite NP with instrumental Case. Note that in this example the predicate is irresultative, which is reminiscent of Finnish, where strong NPs can be marked with partitive Case in irresultative predicates. The example in (41) is not a problem from my point of view, as I tried to demonstrate in chapter 1 that weak NPs can have a strong reading and in this chapter that weak NPs that have a strong reading bear (strong) structural Case. Although Bittner rejects a definiteness analysis, she acknowledges that there are differences in interpretation between the two construction types. Consider the following pair of examples from Bittner:

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Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

(42) (43)

Jaaku-p umiarsuaq taku-sima-nngissaannar-p-as [Greenlandic Eskimo J Jacob ERG shiPABS seepastneverind_3sERGj3sABS Jaaku umiarsuar-mik taku-nni-sima-nnglssaannar-p-uq JacobABS shiPINS seeap_pastnever ind-3sABS

Bittner translates (42) as Jacob, ship, he never saw it and (43) as Jacob, he never saw ship. According to her, the transitive sentence (42) is compatible with a situation in which several ships had been coming to Jacob's village and Jacob sawall of them but one, whereas the antipassive sentence (43) is not compatible with that scenario but rather with one in which Jacob did not see any of the ships or in which Jacob had never seen a ship in his life because no ship had ever come to his village. The transitive sentence (42), on the other hand, is judged incompatible with these situations. The translations given by Bittner indicate that ship in both sentences may be neutral with respect to whether it is definite or indefinite, but not with respect to referentiality. Therefore, it can still be maintained that ship in (42) gets a strong reading, whereas ship in (43) gets a weak reading. I think that the terms strong reading and weak reading as introduced in chapter 1 are compatible with Bittner's view. The point to note here is that there are two possible Cases for what might be called the object of a transitive verb and that each of these objective Cases correlates with a certain interpretation. The interpretation of the object can be characterized in terms of weakness and strength, but the example in (40) shows that a strong, definite NP can bear instrumental Case as well. In this kind of examples, the predicate is irresultative. In other words, there still is a correlation with particular meaning effects. Instrumental objective Case on a strong NP affects the interpretation of the NP, or of the predicate as a whole. This also holds for the Finnish examples in which strong, definite NPs bear partitive objective Case. At this point, I will not go any further into the relation between Case and interpretation of the NP, but I will return to this topic in section 4.

The Hypothesis

75

3.2 The nature of weak Case In this section I will argue that it is necessary to distinguish two structural Cases, namely strong and weak structural Case. This means that what has been called inherent Case by Belletti, is in fact a structural Case, or as Vainikka (1989) puts it, a strnctural default Case. The latter term refers to Cases which establish a direct relation between structural position and type of Case. At first sight, this might seem rather confusing, as we saw above that structural Case is structurally assigned in a proper formal configuration, whereas inherent Case is not. In the literature the notion default Case has been used mostly to refer to a type of Case that is found in positions where one would not expect to find Case at all. In English, default Case was originally associated with dative, later with nominative or accusative. In many languages nominative Case is not expressed by a particular suffIx; instead, nouns that bear nominative Case appear in their uninflected form. Furthermore, there are all kinds of constructions that suggest that nominative Case is not assigned by a governor but shows up as a default Case (cf. Jakobson 1935, Koster 1987, Zwart 1988). One example from Dutch is given in (44); the pronominal bears nominative Case while the verb is untensed: (44)

Hij een boek lezen, dat kan ik me niet voorstellen [Dutch] heNOM a book read, that can I me not imagine "Him reading a book, I cannot imagine"s

Another construction in which nominative Case cannot be assigned by a governor like Agr is found in (45); here the left-dislocated NP bears nominative Case: (45)

Dieser Mann, den kenn ich nicht [Gennan] this NOM manNOM' that-oneACC know I not "This man, I do not know him"

A default Case assignment mechanism would imply, however, that an NP can always be assigned Case. In that case we might just as

76

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

well drop the Case filter, with all consequences for the explanatory force of Case theory. The Case filter can partly be reduced to theta theory, but the theta criterion does not block overgeneration of nominative subjects in for instance control complements. Zwart (1988) extensively examines the option of a default nominative Case mechanism but cannot deal with the consequences this would have for control theory. Therefore, I will not adopt this analysis and stick to a more traditional view on nominative Case as a Case assigned or licensed by a governor, while assuming that "strange nominatives" such as in (44) and (45) have to be analyzed alternatively. In Chomsky (1986) it is assumed (as opposed to Chomsky 1981) that oblique Case assigned by prepositions and by a number of verbs in an idiosyncratic way is another instantiation of inherent Case. I adopt a different view in which a distinction is made between syntactic (or structural) Case and lexical (or oblique) Case. Syntactic Case can be either strong or weak. This means that in Finnish, partitive objective Case is a syntactic Case and should be distinguished from lexical Cases such as eiative, inessive, adessive, etcetera. This is in accordance with Nikanne (1990), who also distinguishes these oblique Cases and syntactic Cases (among which the partitive), while arguing that phrases bearing oblique Cases are in fact PPs, whereas the ones with syntactic Case are NPs. Vainikka (1989) claims that in Finnish partitive Case is the default Case for the object position of a transitive verb. I would like to borrow Vainikka's notion of structural default Case as a description of what weak Case actually is. Thus, partitive objective Case in Finnish is viewed as a structurally default weak Case assigned to the Finnish object position. We find something similar in Turkish. In Turkish, complements of transitives or S-structure subjects of certain unaccusative verbs can bear a Case that is traditionally known as ablative partitive. Kornfilt (1990) notes that when these ablative partitives show up with transitive verbs, they behave like regular direct objects with respect to causativization in that the causee surfaces with dative Case. Compare (46) to (47), both taken from Kornfilt:

The Hypothesis (46)

(47)

Ali-ye siit-ten ic;-ir-di-m AlioAT milkABL drinkcaus_past_lsg "I made Ali drink of the milk" Hasan-a Ali-yi dov-diir-dii-m HasanOAT AliACC beatcaus-past-lsg "I made Hasan beat up Ali"

77 [Turkish} [Turkish}

In this respect these ablative partitive objects behave differently from oblique objects selected by the verb, and also from other ablative marked objects that are selected idiosyncratically or semantically. In these cases causativization leads to a causee in the accusative. (48)

(49)

(50)

Ali-yi tablo-ya bak-tir-di-m AliACC paintingoAT lookcaus-past_lsg "I made Ali look at the paintmg" Ali-yi fareler-den nefret et-tir-di-m AliACC ratsABL hate dOcaus-past-lsg "I made Ali hate rats" Ali-yi soz-iin-den don-diir-dii-m AliACC word-hisABL returncaus_past_lsg "I made Ali break his promise"

[Turkish}

Thus, there appears to be a use of ablative Case in Turkish that has to be distinguished from lexical Case (both other lexical Cases and lexical use of the ablative). Since these particular ablative objects pattern with structural accusative objects, we seem to be dealing with another instantiation of weak Case assignment. Kornfilt notes that the phenomenon of ablative partitive objects in Turkish might be viewed as a manifestation of Belletti's partitive Case. She rejects this view for reasons that lose their validity in view of my analysis of partitive Case in Finnish. For instance, she argues against the idea that ablative partitive is a lexical Case, which she assumes partitive Case in Finnish is. As has become clear by now, I take partitive objective Case in Finnish to be a weak structural Case. 6 Kornfilt argues that these ablative objects are assigned abstract structural Case, when they show up in the complement position of verbs. Recall that transitive verbs in Turkish optionally

78

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

mark their objects with an accusative Case marker, cf. (32)-(33), repeated below: (32) (33)

Ali kitabi okudu Ali bookACC read "Ali read the book" Ali kitap okudu Ali book read "Ali read a book"

[Turkish}

As a matter of fact, I considered this abstract structural Case in (33) to be an instantiation of weak Case assignment, just like partitive Case on objects in Finnish. Hence, if Kornfilt is on the right track with regard to the fact that the ablative objects are assigned the same type of Case as the object in (33), then we can maintain the suggestion that ablative partitive in Turkish represents another instantiation of weak Case. Bok-Bennema (1991) presents an analysis of the anti passive construction in Eskimo languages that can be referred to as the accusative hypothesis. She rejects the standard analysis which involves absorption of the internal theme argument and argues in favour of structural accusative Case on the theme NP in an anti passive sentence. Her main argument derives from causative Exceptional Case Marking constructions, which constitute serious problems for the standard anti passive analysis. These problems are solved by the accusative hypothesis, according to which the instrumental NP of an antipassive clause is in fact an accusative direct object NP. Bok-Bennema argues that since this accusative Case is assigned under certain structural conditions and is not thematically related to the verb, it cannot be inherent Case. Therefore, she assumes that the weak interpretation triggered by this accusative Case cannot be explained by an analysis based on the difference between structural and inherent Case. There are some salient similarities between Bok-Bennema's structural Case and other weak Cases we have discussed. One example is the existential construction in Eskimo languages, that is formed by means of an afflxal verb -qar. Bok-Bennema discusses the following example:

The Hypothesis

(51)

79

Nutaa-mik umiarsuar-nut tallittarvi-qar-puq [West Greenlandic J newACC shiPOAT harbour-haveind_3s "There is a new harbour for ships"

This example shows that the modifier of the noun incorporated by -qar turns up in the accusative Case. This would be problematic for an approach that treats the verb -qar as un accusative, unless one assumes that these verbs can still license weak Case and that this weak Case is realized as what Bok-Bennema calls accusative Case in (51). Similarly, it is generally assumed that anti passive suffixes do not cooccur with intransitive verbs, but this does not hold for a construction that is dubbed impersonal antipassive by Bittner (1988), the following example of whom is discussed by BokBennema: (52)

Qilalukka-nik pui-si-vuq [West GreenlandicJ whalesACC come up to surfaceap _ind_3s "There appeared whales on the surface"

The problem with this example is that an apparently un accusative verb seems to be able to assign accusative Case to its object. If, as Bok-Bennema claims, the verb is accusative after all, then the question arises what happened to the external 8-role that, according to Burzio's Generalization (cf. Burzio 1986), accusative verbs should assign. Bok-Bennema proposes that this role is fulfilled by a nominative pro referring to the sea. As a consequence she has to claim that (52) should be paraphrased as It (the sea) had whales come up to its surface. In that way, she can maintain the idea that the accusative Case in Eskimo languages is a structural accusative Case assigned by verbs which take external arguments and should be equated with structural accusative Case in non-ergative languages. This might be a possible analysis for languages with locative subjects (cf. Bresnan and Kanerva 1989), but I do not see much supportive evidence for such a solution in Inuit. In fact, Bok-Bennema's solution to the problem constituted by a sentence such as (52) seems to be rather ad hoc and moreover,

80

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

misses an important generalization, namely that this accusative Case is very similar to partitive Case in Finnish in several respects. In a Finnish translation of (52), the NP whales would be marked with partitive Case. Thus, Bok-Bennema's structural accusative Case seems to be another instantiation of weak Case, and in our revised Case theory, weak Case is a structural Case indeed. To sum up, we have witnessed several indications in favour of the idea that Belletti's inherent partitive Case, Vainikka's structural default Case, Kornfilt's abstract structural Case, and BokBennema's structural accusative Case are different terms for one and the same thing: a weak objective Case that is default licensed in a structural position, a type of Case that should be distinguished from strong Case as well as from lexical oblique Case. But what is the exact nature of this type of Case? We already saw that the link Belletti establishes between partitive Case and a fixed meaning which should be entailed by a certain 8-role, cannot be maintained. On the contrary, other authors who discuss a variant of weak Case all argue that this type of objective Case is not inherent but structural, because it is not related to a specific 8-role. Therefore, I take weak Case to be a syntactic Case that is not weak in the sense that it is related to a specific 8-role, but in the sense that it is default related to a certain syntactic position or configuration. Weak Case, then, is a structural default Case licensed at Dstructure in a certain configuration. For instance, government by a transitive verb can license weak Case; some transitive verbs can only license weak Case, whereas other transitive verbs can only license strong Case. Most transitive verbs seem to be able to alternate between licensing either weak or strong Case. Weak Case is not related to a specific 8-role, which distinguishes it from lexical or oblique Case. Strong Case differs from weak Case in that it is licensed at S-structure.

3.3 Deriving Case adjacency A principle of Case Theory that has not been discussed hitherto is the principle of Case adjacency that requires a Case-marked element to be adjacent to its Case assigner (cf. Stowell 1981). This

The Hypothesis

81

should account for the difference in grammaticality between (53) and (54): (53) Jane read the book yesterday (54) * Jane read yesterday the book In (54) the object is not adjacent to the Case assigning verb so that the sentence is ruled out by the Case filter. Although the Case adjacency principle seems plausible for English, it is not so obvious for a language like Dutch, where the counterpart of (54) is perfectly grammatical. (55) (56)

dat Jane gisteren het boek las that Jane yesterday the book read dat Jane het boek gisteren las that Jane the book yesterday read

[Dutch[

In languages like Dutch and German it is possible to have adverbs or other arguments between the verb and the direct object. Therefore, the adjacency principle seems to be too strong. H is interesting to note, however, that in Turkish direct objects that receive weak Case (including the ablative partitive objects) must be adjacent to the verb. This can be seen in the following examples (which are again from Kornfilt 1990): (57)

Ben diln aksam r;ok gilzel bir biftek yedim I yesterday evening very nice a steak ate "Yesterday evening, I ate a very nice steak" (58) * Ben r;ok gilzel bir biftek diln aksam yedim I very nice a steak yesterday evening ate (59) Ben bifteg-i diln aksam yedim I steakACC yesterday evening ate "I ate the steak yesterday evening"

[Turkish]

From (57) and (58) it follows that an object that bears weak Case must be adjacent to the verb, whereas (59) shows that this does not hold for an object bearing structural accusative Case. The question arises how this should be accounted for. One way to interpret these facts is to say that weak Case cannot be inherited under movement (cf. Reuland 1988). That is, an object

82

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

that bears weak Case may not move from its original position, or, to put it differently, it can only be licensed in its original Dstructure position. This statement is too strong. For instance, in Dutch a difference should be made between topicalization and scrambling; weak NPs in general cannot scramble, but they can be topicalized. In the next chapter, this difference will be accounted for in terms of the distinction between A-movement (for scrambling) and A-bar movement (for topicalization). Reuland (1988) refers to Kayne (1981), who argues that in French P can only assign Case under subcategorization (i.e. inherently), whereas in English P can also assign Case under structural government (i.e. structurally). Thus he can account for the fact that preposition stranding is never possible in French, whereas it is in certain cases in English, by claiming that in French, P and V do not govern in the same way (and therefore cannot be subject to reanalysis) whereas in English, P can govern structurally like V. Some relevant examples are given below: (60) Which candidate have you voted for e? * Quel candidat as-tu vote pour e? (61) (62) * Which day did you watch the film on e?

[French]

With respect to these examples Reuland suggests that only strong Case can be inherited under movement. This is in accordance with Bok-Bennema (1991), who argues that except for the presence of the antipassive suffix, there is no distinction between the D-structures of an ergative and an anti passive sentence in Inuit. The difference is that in ergative Sstructure the direct object NP is moved out of the VP and receives nominative Case in its VP-external position at S-structure. In antipassive sentences the direct object NP receives structural accusative Case inside the VP and does not move. On my analysis, this would mean that the weak Case on the object NP in antipassives is licensed in object position at D-structure. Movement would mean that this NP loses its weak Case. Strong Case, on the other hand, can be licensed on the object NP or its trace at Sstructure.

The Hypothesis

83

This would also account for some facts from Italian, discussed by Belletti (1988). Consider the following sentence and its structure, as given by Belletti: (63) * Sembra tre ragazzi essere arrivati [Italian] seems three boys to have arrived (63') [NPprol sembra [IP[NP tre ragazzili essere arrivati [eld In the above structure the un accusative verb arrivare 'arrive' licenses weak Case on its D-structure object. After weak Case has been licensed on the object, it moves into the subject position. If the object could take its weak Case while moving, the sentence should be well-formed with respect to the Case filter. Within our proposal, the observation that (63) is in fact ill-formed indicates that weak Case can only be licensed in the original D-structure position and not in the subject position. 7,8 All in all we get the following picture. Weak Case can be licensed on an NP in a certain configuration at D-structure. This type of Case is a weak Case in the sense that it can no longer be licensed as soon as the NP moves out of the original position to another A-position (see also chapter 3, §1.3). That means that if an NP moves out of its original weak Case position, strong Case must be licensed at S-structure to avoid a violation of the Case filter. In certain cases, at S-structure this will show up as an adjacency requirement for NPs bearing weak Case and their licensers. The D-structure position requirement, however, does not always boil down to an adjacency requirement. In Dutch, for instance, PPs can intervene between a weak NP on its weak reading and the verb, witness the examples in (64)-(65) (Jan Koster, p.c.) and (66)-(67) (Eric Reuland, p.c.): (64) (65) (66) (67)

dat hij enkele artikelen met die mensen las that he some articles with those people read dat hij piano met die mensen speelde that he piano with those people played dat zij enkele maanden naar Amerika ging that she several months to America went dat zij een gat in de tuin groef that she a hole in the garden dug

[Dutch]

84

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

We might still assume, however, that in these cases the weak NP is in its D-structure position, the more so as adding a sentence adverb such as altijd 'always' has the same effect on the interpretation of the weak object in that scrambling to the position before this adverb yields a strong reading: (68)

a.

b.

dat hij altijd enkele artikelen met die mensen [Dutch] las that he always some articles with those people read dat hij enkele artikelen altijd met die mensen las that he some articles always with those people read

The weak object favours a weak reading in the unscrambled position in (68a) and a strong (either partitive or referential) reading in the scrambled position in (68b). So, I propose that the objects in (64)-(68a) are in their D-structure position as are the PPs in these sentences. It might very well be the case that with respect to PPs, too, we have to distinguish between weak and strong ones. The PPs in (64)-(65) and (67), for instance, may be extraposed to the postverbal position, whereas the PP in (66) must remain in situ. An analysis of PP-extraposition possibilities will be provided in chapter 3, §2.6. It IS well-known from the literature that reordered constituents sometimes become frozen in the sense that they behave as absolute islands: no extraction can take place out of these constituents then. An example of this phenomenon (Koster 1987, chapter 4) concerns PP-extraposition. If a PP is extraposed, P-stranding is no longer possible; consider (69) and (70): (69)

a.

b.

(70)

a.

Zij heeft een gat in de tuin gegraven [Dutch] she has a hole in the garden dug Waarj heeft zij een gat tj in gegraven? where has she a hole in dug Zij heeft een gat gegraven in de tuin she has a hole dug in the garden

The Hypothesis b.

85

* Waa'j heeft zij een gat gegraven tj in? where has she a hole dug in

If we take these facts to indicate that the PP in (69) is in its Dstructure position, and that the PP in (70) is not, then similarly it can be shown that the weak NP is also in its D-structure position here, or, in other words, the order of the NP and the PP in (69) (and also in the other examples above) is the unmarked one, since in (71), where the order is reversed, extraction also gives a bad result:

(71)

a. b.

*

Zij heeft in de tuin een gat gegraven [Dutch J she has in the garden a hole dug Waa'j heeft zij tj in een gat gegraven? where has she in a hole dug

Koster (1987) furthermore points out that the above facts cannot be accounted for under the assumption that P must be adjacent to the verb, as Bennis and Hoekstra (1984) suggested, witness the examples in (72): (72)

a.

b. (73)

a.

b.

Zij is met blaasontsteking naar de dokter gegaan [Dutch J she is with inflammation of the bladder to the doctor gone Waa'j is zij tj mee naar de dokter gegaan? where is she with to the doctor gone Zij is naar de dokter met blaasontsteking gegaan she is to the doctor with inflammation of the bladder gone ?? Waa'j is zij naar de dokter tj mee gegaan? where is she to the doctor with gone

So, extraction out of the PP not adjacent to the verb is possible in (72b). In (73b), extraction is not possible, although this PP is now adjacent to the verb. Moreover, the difference in well-formedness between (72b) and (73b) suggests that there is aD-structure hierarchy with respect to the ordering of different PPs in Dutch.

86

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

The question why NPs that bear weak Case must stay in their original D-structure position, or, more appropriately, cannot move to another A-position, has not been answered so far. Several possible answers to this question will be discussed in the next chapter. Note that the double object construction that the distinction strnctural/ inherent Case assignment was originally invented for, can no longer be analyzed in the same way. Reconsider (8): (8)

Jackie gave Jane a book

Chomsky (1981) argues that the direct object a book receives inherent Case for the very reason that it is not adjacent to the verb. This, however, is incompatible with the assumption developed so far that NPs bearing weak Case must be adjacent to their governor if that position is their D-structure position. Fortunately, several arguments suggest that Chomsky's (1981) analysis is on the wrong track (cf. E. Hoekstra 1991, Koster 1988). In Dutch, for instance, only direct objects can receive structural objective Case, which follows from the fact that in a double object construction only the direct object can passivize. (74)

dat Els de katten de vis voert that Els the cats 10 the fish oo feeds (75) dat de katten de vis gevoerd wordt that the cats 10 the fish su fed was (76) * dat de katten de vis gevoerd worden that the cats the fish fed were

[Dutch}

[Dutch}

Subject-verb agreement indicates that only the direct object can be passivized. For an analysis of the difference between Dutch and English with regard to the VP-internal constituent order, I refer the reader to E. Hoekstra (1991) and Koster (1988).

3.4 Some consequences Obviously, the fact that weak Case is defined as a structural default Case rather than in terms of 8-relatedness, has some consequences

87

The Hypothesis

for the theory Belletti (1988) proposes. In this section these consequences will be discussed and we will see how our revised theory accounts for them. I will adopt Belletti's claim that transitives optionally assign either strong or weak Case, whereas ergatives are only capable of licensing weak Case. The reader should keep in mind, though, that it has already become clear that Belletti's analysis as far as it attempts to account for the definiteness restriction in existential sentences, must be rejected. In French, there is a definiteness effect in impersonal passives. This is expected, given that passive verbs lack the capacity to assign strong accusative Case and can therefore be considered unaccusative. (77)

a.

b.

*

II a ete tue un homme there has been killed a man II a ete tue I'homme there has been killed the man

/French!

In Italian, however, sentences with postverbal subjects as given in (78)-(79) are well-formed, regardless of whether the postverbal NP is indefinite or not and of whether the verb is un accusative or not.

(78)

E arrivato il ragazzo

/Italian!

(79)

is arrived the boy Ha parlato (con Piero) il ragazzo has spoken (with Piero) the boy

/Italian!

Although the above sentences suggest that Italian does not display a definiteness effect, Belletti argues that this would be a wrong conclusion. The postverbal NPs in (78)-(79) are not in object position (instead, they are adjoined to VP) and therefore unaffected by the definiteness effect. Clearly, in Belletti's theory this only works on the assumption that partitive Case assignment is optional. Belletti rejects the corollary of the un accusative hypothesis that nominative Case can be transmitted to the thematic object of an un accusative verb in its D-structure position. She assumes that partitive Case is the only available Case for this position. On the other hand, the VP-adjoined subject can be nominative Case-marked.

88

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

In a configuration in which the relevant postverbal NP seems to be in the object position of the unaccusative ( or passive) verb, the definitess effect does show up.9 This is illustrated in (80)-(81): Era finalmente arrivato qualche studente a lezione fItaiian} was finally arrived some student to the lecture (81) * Era finalmente arrivato ogni studente a lezione was finally arrived every student to the lecture

(80)

On my analysis weak objective Case can only be licensed in the original D-structure position. Strong nominative Case, on the other hand, can be inherited. Note that Pinto (1994) argues that it is not true that Italian shows free subject inversion, as is generally assumed, and that the restrictions on subject inversion cannot be reduced to the definiteness restriction. Pinto shows that semantic and informational conditions interact with syntactic well-formedness constraints. Referential locatives appear to play an important role in these constructions. Another problem is constituted by languages such as Dutch which allow all verbs in there-sentences, although the subject NP must be indefinite. Belletti argues that these indefinite subjects are not in standard subject position ([Spec, IPJ) but VP-internal and allows weak Case to be assigned to the VP-internal position, which is not the object position, but still thematically associated with the verb. Evidently, this is not very convincing in view of the Italian examples where the definiteness restriction turned out to be restricted to the object position. Moreover, this line of reasoning cannot be maintained in the analysis according to which weak Case is only licensed in a certain configuration. An analysis of existential there-sentences in Dutch will be developed in chapter 3. Belletti furthermore argues that partitive Case cannot be assigned under Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) because it is an inherent Case. An instance of ECM is given in (82) where the matrix verb is assumed to assign Case to the subject of a small clause.

The Hypothesis (82)

89

Ho sempre considerato [sc:Gianni intelligentelfItalianJ I have always considered Gianni intelligent

Bare plurals in Italian can only get an existential reading and are generally excluded from standard subject position. Therefore, Belletti assumes that bare plurals in Italian must, whereas other indefinite NPs can but need not, be marked with partitive Case. At this point, the following paradigm can be accounted for in Belletti's analysis: (83) (84) (85)

* Consideravo [sc:studenti intelligenti]

[ItalianJ

I considered students intelligent Consideravo [gli studenti intelligenti] I considered the students intelligent I consider [students intelligent]

According to Belletti, the matrix verb in (83) cannot assign partitive Case to the small clause subject, due to the inherent nature of partitive Case, i.e. the subject is not 8-marked by the matrix verb but by the adjectival phrase. The subject cannot get accusative Case either (because it is a bare plural), and therefore the sentence is out. If the subject is a definite NP, it receives structural accusative Case from the matrix verb under ECM (cf. (84». The contrast between (83) and (85) can be accounted for if it is assumed that in English bare plurals can have accusative Case. Indeed, bare plurals in English do not necessarily get an existential reading; they can also get a generic reading, which is what happens in (85).10 In fact, what is going on in (83)-(85) is that the individual level predicate (be) intelligent triggers a strong reading on its subject, which is universally the case, as was already pointed out in the previous chapter (following Milsark 1977). Bare plurals in Italian, however, cannot get a strong, generic reading and therefore (83) is ill-formed, whereas in English, bare plurals can have a generic reading which leads to the well-formed sentence (85). Obviously, this holds independently of the ECM construction. Therefore, it is no longer evident that weak Case cannot be licensed in an ECM configuration.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

90

Indeed, in Eskimo languages, weak Case can be assigned under ECM, as pointed out by Bok-Bennema (1991) who uses this as an argument in favour of the structural rather than inherent nature of this type of objective Case in Inuit. An example is provided below where the causative affIxal ECM verb -tit is antipassivized: (86)

Miiqqa-nik kalaallisut ilinniar-tit -si-vuq [West Greenlandic} childrenACC Greenlandic learn-causeap _inct_3s "She is teaching children Greenlandic'

Even more convincing in this respect is the observation that in Finnish the subject of a small clause selected by the verb consider can bear partitive Case, although this should be impossible, according to Belletti: ll (87)

Anne pitaa [helsinkilaisia kummallisina I [Finnish} Anne considers inhabitants of Helsinki pART strange

Thus, it seems that ECM verbs, like transitive verbs, can license weak objective Case in a proper D-structure confIguration. The fact that the ECM-object in (87) gets partitive Case, seems to be due to the irresultativity of the predicate consider... (strange) .12 As expected, the ECM-objects of resultative predicates bear accusative Case, as illustrated in (88)-(89): (88) (89)

Anne juoksi kengat hajalle Anne ran shoesACC to-pieces Raavin kaikki lautaset puhtaaksi I-scraped all platesACC clean

[Finnish}

One other point that needs clarifIcation is that the system proposed by Belletti permits structures in which an NP marked with partitive Case at D-structure, at S-structure shows up in a position where it is assigned structural Case. Belletti supposes that this can be viewed as a general ability of inherent Case to 'combine' with structural Case. For instance, she claims that morphologically realized inherent Case on a subject in subject

The Hypothesis

91

position can be interpreted as the overt manifestation of the ability of inherent Case to combine with structural nominative Case. In this way she explains the quirky Case phenomenon, as found in e.g. Icelandic (cf. Levin 1981, Andrews 1982): (90) (91)

Mer k6lnar meDAT is getting cold Snj6a leysir a fjallinu snowACC melts on the mountain

[Icelandic]

In my approach weak Case cannot be inherited under Amovement. This means that if quirky Case were an instance of weak Case, then it should be a weak Case licensed in [Spec, IP] position. The configurations in (90) and (91) would apparently constitute proper configurations for this weak Case to be licensed. Yet, it seems more appropriate to consider quirky Case an instantiation of lexical Case instead of (D-) structural Case. At least at first sight it does not seem to be the case that the quirky Case subjects in (90) and (91) get a weak interpretation. To sum up, the revised Case theory that was introduced in this section distinguishes two structural objective Cases, one of which is licensed in D-structure configuration, the other one at Sstructure. The correlation between the two types of structural Case and NP interpretation will be elaborated upon in the next section. As will become apparent, the distinction between S- and Dstructural Case can account for observations concerning two types of objective Case in different languages and still account for all data Belletti supplies. A Case adjacency requirement is not universal, but sometimes surfaces as the requirement that an NP with weak Case must stay in its D-structure position. The question why weak Case NPs are not licensed in other A-positions than their D-structure positions has not been answered so far, but will be discussed in the next chapter. Defining weak Case as a structural rather than an inherent Case can also serve as an explanation for some additional facts, among which the observation that ECM verbs do seem capable of licensing weak Case under certain conditions on the involved interpretations.

92

4.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Case and interpretation

4.0 Introduction In the theory developed so far syntactic Case is divided into strong Case correlating with a strong reading on the NP and weak Case correlating with a weak reading on the NP. We have also seen a general tendency by virtue of which weak Case is not inherited under A-movement, the reason for which will be discussed in the next chapter. For now this generalization will suffice to account for the Dutch paradigm discussed at the end of the previous chapter and repeated below: (92)

(93)

(94) (95)

referential reading: [Dutch] ... dat de politie een kraker gisteren opgepakt heeft that the police a squatter yesterday arrested has partitive reading: [Dutch/ ... dat de politie twee krakers gisteren opgepakt heeft that the police two squatters yesterday arrested has generic reading: ... dat de politie krakers altijd oppakt that the police squatters always arrests generic collective reading: ... dat de politie tien krakers aItijd oppakt that the police ten squatters always arrests

Scrambling of the object into the position before the adverb triggers a strong reading. If, on the other hand, the object has not scrambled, it can have either a weak or a strong reading. But only if the object bears strong Case may it move, and this accounts for the fact that a strong reading is the only possible reading for the objects in (92)-(95). This can be generalized as follows: (96)

GENERALIZATlON If an object bears strong Case, then it has a strong reading

The Hypothesis

93

The examples in (92)-(95) illustrate that there is more than one strong reading possible, dependent on other factors such as the nature of the determiner and the adverb (compare e.g. (93) to (95». One more illustration is from Turkish. Consider (97) and (98) (cf. En~ 1991): (97) (98)

Iki kizi daha once gormii~tiim two girlACC more before I had seen "I had seen two girls before" Daha once iki kiz gormii~tiim more before two girl I had seen "I had seen two girls before"

[Turkish]

In (97) the NP bears strong Case - which is reflected by the accusative Case marker - and as a consequence, it has a strong interpretation. That is, two girl in (97) either means something like the two girls (note that Turkish has no articles) or it gets a partitive reading, paraphrasable as two of the girls. In (98), the object NP bears weak Case, and only a weak, existential reading appears to be possible (that is, I had seen two girls before, but not necessarily the same two girls as the ones I see now). This leads to the following generalization: (99)

GENERALIZATION If an object bears weak Case, then it has a weak reading

The generalizations in (96) and (99) together with the Case filter allow us to conclude that the implications in (96) and (99) also hold the other way around, at least if we abstract away from NPs that bear lexical, oblique Case. This can be done, because we are only concerned with object NPs, hence NPs that get structural (either weak or strong) Case. Indeed, if an object has a strong reading, then it must bear strong Case, for weak Case would lead to a weak reading and no Case would result in a violation of the Case filter. Thus, (96) and (99) may be combined in the following way.

94

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation (100)

GENERALIZATION An object bears strong Case if and only if it has a strong reading

But what exactly is a strong reading? An answer to this question will be formulated in the remainder of this chapter. In addition, the nature of NPs on a weak reading will be discussed.

4.1 The hypothesis So far it has become clear that there is a correlation between the type of Case assigned to an object and the type of interpretation this object gets. The interpretation of the object can be characterized in terms of weakness and strength. But it was also pointed out that strong NPs in, for instance, Finnish and Greenlandic Eskimo can bear weak Case also with concomitant meaning effects. In Finnish, partitive Case on the object seems to be a matter of either weakness of the object or of irresultativity of the predicate. The question arises what the factor common to both might be. Consider another example of the latter phenomenon: (101) (102)

Presidentti ampui lintua president shot bird pART "The president shot at a/the bird" Presidentti ampui linn un president shot birdACC "The president shot a/the bird"

[Finnish]

In (102), the object bears accusative Case and the sentence seems to be about both the president and the bird, that is the president did the shooting and the bird was shot. In (101), on the other hand, the object bears partitive Case and the interpretation is that the president shot at a bird, the result not being known, that is (101) is about the activity of shooting rather than about the bird. Accordingly, verbs with an intrinsic irresultative meaning in Finnish are subcategorized for a partitive object, e.g. the verb think in (103):

The Hypothesis

(103)

Ajattelen sinua I-think you PART "I think of you"

95 [Finnish]

Similarly, verbs expressing an emotion or state of mind can be considered intrinsically irresultative and accordingly, their objects are usually in the partitive: (104)

Minii rakastan sinua I love youPART

[Finnish]

Also, resultative predicates (in most cases, their resultativity is achieved by a perfective particle) only take accusative objects. For example: (105)

Chris maalasi taulun valmiiksi Chris painted pictureACC ready "Chris finished painting the picture"

[Finnish]

Apparently, nominal and aspectual factors interact in a way that has consequences for the composition of the meaning of the sentence as a whole. Obviously, not every language expresses (ir)resultativity by means of Case on NPs, but the connection between resultative aspect and strength of the object seems far from coincidental. It can even be illustrated for English, witness (106): (106)

Jane drank up the wine/*wine

The perfective particle up is incompatible with a bare mass noun (bare plurals and mass nouns often behave as the weakest among weak NPs). Some observations from Szabolcsi (1986b) are even more striking in this respect. Consider the following examples: (107)

Mari talalt tollat/ket tollat/(nemi) tejet [Hungarian] Mari found penACC/two penACC/(some) milkACC "Mari found a pen/two pens/some milk"

96

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

(108 * Mari talalt(a) a tollat/Peter tollat/minden tollat Mari found the penACC/Peter's penACC/every penAcc "Mari found the pen/Peter's pen/every pen" (109) Mari megtalalt( a) a tollat/ ket tollat Mari PERF-found the penACC/two penAcc "Mari found the pen/two pens" The sentences (107) and (108) show a definiteness restnctlOn on the object of certain transitive verbs in Hungarian. In (109), where the perfective prefix meg is added, the definiteness restriction disappears. Szabolcsi intuitively characterizes the difference between Mari found two pens in (107) and (109) as follows. In the case of (107), the existence of two pens is taken to be the result of what Mari did, whereas the prefixed version in (109) implies that Mari succesfully located two pens, where the existence of those pens is independent of whether Mari found them. Szabolcsi explicitly notes that two pens in (109) may be interpreted as either specific or non-specific. This can be understood as strong or weak in our terms. In (107), on the other hand, only the pure existential reading is possible: the domain of discourse is modified in such a way that two pens are added. One way or another, it seems that certain transitive verbs in Hungarian are only capable of licensing weak Case on their object with a concomitant weak reading. So, either a semantic filter excludes strong readings on the objects of these verbs, so that strong Case cannot be licensed, or these verbs lack the structural ability of assigning strong Case (like ergatives), which explains that strong readings do not occur. In combination with the perfective prefix these verbs can assign strong Case. Hopper and Thompson (1980) provide examples from a wide variety of languages in order to show that transitivity is in fact a scalar phenomenon subject to different parameters. They take factors such as perfective aspect and individuated or affected object to be characteristics of high transitivity. One of their examples shows that a perfective verb in Hungarian (notice the perfective particle meg) cannot cooccur with an indefinite, as is illustrated in (110) and (111):

The Hypothesis

97

A fiu eszik kenyeret the boy ate bread "The boy ate (some) bread." (111) * A fiu meg-eszik kenyeret the boy PERF-ate bread "The boy ate up (some) bread."

(110)

[Hungarian}

A related phenomenon concerns the omissibility of the object. The object of an imperfective verb enni 'eat' can be omitted, whereas the object of the perfective verb megenni 'eat up' must be present (cf. Van Hout 1992): (112)

a.

b.

(113)

a.

b.

I1dik6 evett egy tortat I1dik6 eat3s-past-indef a cake "I1dik6 was eating a cake" I1dik6 evett I1dik6 eat3s-past-indef "I1dik6 was eating"

[Hungarian}

[Hungarian}

I1dik6 megevett egy tortat I1dik6 PERF-eat3s_past_indef a cake "I1dik6 eats up a cake/ has eaten up a cake" * I1dik6 megevett I1dik6 PERF-eat3s-past-indef

Thus, if the VP is atelie (like in (112), following Van Hout 1992), the verb is optionally transitive, whereas if the VP is telie (as in (113)), the verb is obligatorily transitiveP As a matter of fact, the same can be shown in English. Compare the following sentences: (114) (115)

a. b. a. b.

Jane Jane Jane * Jane

is is is is

drinking wine drinking drinking up the wine drinking up

Van Hout argues that there is a lexical telicity operation on argument structure of activity verbs (she discusses activity verbs in Russian, Hungarian, and Dutch). According to her, a verb is listed

98

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

in the lexicon with only some aspectual information, for instance that it is an activity verb. In the lexicon the specification [ + / -telic] is added to the verb by an operation that applies under certain conditions, for instance if there is a prefix. Since the operation is assumed to apply at a lexical level, it affects the argument structure of the verbs involved. More specifically, atelic activity verbs require one argument, whereas telic ones require two arguments. This implies that the object of an atelic activity verb is a predicate modifier rather than a real argument. This is in accordance with the fact that the object of an atelic activity verb can be omitted and also with the fact that such an object very often shows up as a PP and not as an NP. A consequence of Van Hout's approach is that the strength of the direct object cannot change the + / -telicity of the VP anymore, she claims that all objects of atelic predicates denote predicate modifiers. If the predicate is made atelic (by an operation in the lexicon), then a strong object cannot change this atelicity of the VP anymore, witness (116): (116)

Ildik6 ette a tortat [Hungarian J Ildik6 eat3s_past_def the cake "Ildik6 was eating of the cake (but she did not necessarily finish it)"

The Hungarian verb in (116) is imperfective, hence the VP is atelic, irrespective of the strength of the object. The object is definite in (116) but the predicate remains atelic. In English, things are different: English has no perfective-imperfective verbal paradigm and if one wishes to combine imperfective aspect and a definite object, then this object usually occurs within a PP (as in the translation of (116», which supports the claim that the object of an atelic predicate functions as a predicate modifier, as it is obvious that the PP of the cake denotes a predicate modifier. Van Hout's approach does not violate the principle of compositionality, but compositionality is located in the lexicon. Within this lexical approach, VP-aspect is determined at a lexical level, and the verb is inserted in the syntax with the feature telic or atelic. It is this feature, and not properties of a possible direct object, that gives rise to a telic or an atelic VP.

The Hypothesis

99

Supportive evidence for the fact that the factor [I- I-telic] in this way ranks above the [+ I-definite] feature, can be obtained from Finnish. Reconsider the Finnish examples (101) and (102): (101) (102)

Presidentti ampui lintua president shot bird pART Presidentti ampui linn un president shot birdAcc

[Finnish]

Sentence (101) with partitive Case on the object can be translated as The president shot at the bird ([-tel, + defJ)14, but not as The president shot a bird ([ + tel, -defJ). Likewise, (102) with accusative Case on the object, can be translated as The president shot a bird ([ +tel, -defJ), but not as The president shot at the bird ([-tel, + defJ). In other words, usually the distinction between accusative and partitive Case in Finnish is attributed to either weaknessl strength of the object or (a)telicity of the VP, but in case of an actitivity verb such as in (101), the use of partitive Case can only indicate that the VP is atelic, irrespective of the definiteness of the object, and likewise, the object bearing accusative Case in (102) can only be interpreted as the object of a telic predicate, again irrespective of its definiteness. A related analysis is found in a recent dissertation on aspect and nominal interpretation in Scottish Gaelic (Ramchand 1993). Ramchand shows that Scottish Gaelic behaves like Finnish with respect to Case marking and the interpretation of objects. In Scottish Gaelic, objects may get either genitive Case and a concomitant weak, existential reading, or what Ramchand calls direct Case (i.e. nominative and accusative) and this gives rise to a strong, referential reading. In Scottish Gaelic, unlike in Finnish, the distinction between definites and indefinites is represented morphologically, and both definite and indefinite objects may appear in the genitive Case. Like in Finnish, the reading that is obtained when definites or other quantificational NPs get this type of case is an irresultative reading of the predicate as a whole. So, again we see that 'a strong object + irresultative interpretation' is marked by the same Case as 'a weak object + no obligatory irresultativity'. Ramchand considers this genitive Case in Scottish Gaelic an instantiation of weak structural Case.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

100

At this point, many questions concerning the exact correlation between aspectual properties of the VP and strength of the object are left open. One possibility is to characterize objects of telic activity verbs as strong, irrespective of their other characteristics. The fact that bare plurals and mass nouns have difficulty in occupying the object position of telic activity verbs, would then indicate that these objects cannot be strong. IS Maybe one can thus maintain the claim that objects of telic predicates necessarily have a strong reading, but this seems harder to hold for an example like (117): (117)

Jane is drinking up two glasses of wine

am not convinced that the object NP in (117) must have a partitive or a referential reading. Therefore, it appears that the reading objects of telic activity verbs have, differs from the possible strong readings discussed in chapter 1. Yet, I think the data shown so far justify the claim that objects of telic activity verbs have a kind of strong reading, although it seems that factors other than the weak-strong distinction also play a part (see for instance Verkuyl 1989, for a theory on the distinction between specified and unspecified quantity). I maintain that apart from the strong readings that were discussed in the previous chapter, objects of telic activity verbs can be argued to have a strong reading as well, strong in a sense that will be formalized below. At the same time objects that bear weak Case (both indefinite objects and objects of atelic predicates) can be argued to have a weak reading. How can the distinction between weak and strong Case objects and their concomitant interpretations be characterized at this point? A possible option is to consider the distinction between objects bearing strong Case and objects bearing weak Case as a matter of involvedness or affectedness of the object. Unfortunately, these terms are rather vague and hard to formalize, but it seems true that the objects with strong Case function like real arguments of the predicate, whereas objects that bear weak Case are more readily interpreted as in some sense part of the predicate. Thus, a partitive object in Finnish, for instance, can be regarded primarily as part of a predicate rather than as an independent argument. Informally, this means that in a sentence

The Hypothesis

101

such as Paul has described this fish the predicate describe takes two independent arguments Paul and this fish, which can be formulated in predicate logic as D(p,f), whereas in a sentence such as Paul is describing a fish, Paul is the only real argument of the predicate describe a fish, which can be noted down as D'(p). With regard to these examples, the interpretations are more or less clear-cut, but it will be clear that in a large number of other examples, both possibilities will be available (at least in English, where strong or weak Case on an object is not visible). Incidentally, a predicate logical notation such as D'(p) does not reflect any compositionality, but I only use it to intuitively give shape to the notion part of the predicate. The issue of a more formal and compositional characterization of this notion will be taken up in section 4.3. Giv6n (1981) provides a nice example from street-Hebrew that shows this semantic difference between the two readings of an object at a morpho-syntactic level. The object on its weak reading functions as part of the predicate, whereas on its strong reading it functions as a real argument: (118)

After I finished working, I went down to the shop across the street... ve-kaniti sefer-xad... (street-Hebrew] and-bought-I book-one and I bought a book ... ... and then I went home and read it and it was excellent a.

b.

ve-kaniti sefer. .. and-bought-I book and I bought a book. .. ... and then I went home and ate and went to sleep

In (118a) the object is marked as a full-fledged argument, but in (118b) it is not and just part of the predicate which refers to an activity that can be described as book-buying. Obviously, these different types of the objects are not marked by differences in morphological Case in street-Hebrew, but I take if for granted that

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

102

the difference between strong and weak Case remains abstract in most languages. Having informally characterized objects that bear weak Case as being interpreted as part of the predicate (a formal characterization will be developed in section 4.3) the question arises how objects that behave as "real" arguments should be characterized. I claim that real arguments denote generalized quantifiers, in accordance with the fact that the distinction quantificational versus non-quantificational has often played a role in formalizing weak and strong objects (see the previous chapter). Thus, the hypothesis can eventually be stated as follows: (119)

HYPOTHESIS An object is interpreted as generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. An object that bears weak Case is interpreted as part of the predicate.

In the previous subsection, we arrived at the generalization that strong readings emerge if and only if the object bears strong Case. In the above hypothesis, a strong reading is attributed to a certain type of NP, the type of a generalized quantifier « ,t». The idea that NPs can have different types which in turn give rise to different interpretations might need some further support. In the next subsection this support is derived from Partee's (1987) theory of type-shifting principles.

4.2 Partee's type-shifting principles In chapter 1 we have seen that Barwise and Cooper's (1981) uniform treatment of NPs as generalized quantifiers is debatable. A number of authors have distinguished several types or uses of NPs. If they are right, then a systematic many-to-one correspondence between syntactic categories and semantic types, as proposed by Montague (1974), will be untenable. Partee (1987) claims that these views are compatible if one assumes the existence of type-shifting principles, argued for in Partee and Rooth (1983). Partee claims that each syntactic category corresponds to a family of types rather than just one single type. The basic NP types

The Hypothesis

103

she discusses are e ("referential"), ("predicative"), and < ,t> ("quantificational"). Partee argues, for example, that in addition to its generalized quantifier interpretation, a definite description such as the cat can also have a iota-operator analysis of type e (given in (120a)) or a predicative reading of type (given in (120b». (120)

a.

b.

LX[cat' (x») .Ax[ cat' (x) & Vy[ cat'(y) - y= xII

Partee provides some evidence for the existence of these different types of NPs. Evidence for NPs being of type < e, t >, for instance, is obtained from their conjoinability with APs in complement positions of verbs like consider under the assumption that constituent conjunction requires identical types. This is illustrated in (121): (121)

I consider Jackie competent authority on unicorns

III

semantics and an

Partee relates the different types of NPs by means of general typeshifting principles, as represented in the following diagram:

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

104

$

-

lift

.....

"""' ~

'-'

(122)

~

~

lower

t

, t >, leading to a strong reading. The theory as developed so far can easily be extended to the other type of argument NPs, namely subjects, as will be done in chapter 3, section 2.

4.4 Strong NPs as part of the predicate It seems that occasionally (certain) strong NPs that syntactically have to be characterized as real objects, can function as part of the predicate, e.g. in expressions like French regarder la tele 'watch (the) television' and Dutch de was doen 'do the laundry'. The definite NPs in these expressions can get a strong (referential) reading or a weak (part-of-the-predicate) reading. This is illustrated in the following sentences: (139) (140)

(141) (142)

omdat ik morgen de buurman ga helpen [Dutch] because I tomorrow the neighbour go help omdat ik de buurman morgen ga helpen because I the neighbour tomorrow go help "because I am going to help the neighbour tomorrow" omdat Paul zondag de was gaat doen because Paul Sunday the wash goes do omdat Paul de was zondag gaat doen because Paul the wash Sunday goes do "because Paul is going to do the laundry Sunday"

The Hypothesis

115

In (139)-(140) the definite NP de buunnan 'the neighbour' gets a strong, referential reading, no matter whether it has been scrambled or not. But in (141)-(142) things are different. In (141) the preferred reading is on which the object de was 'the laundry' functions as part of the predicate; it forms part of the activity 'do the laundry' that is going to happen on Sunday. In (142), however, de was has been scrambled and only a strong, referential reading is possible. 22 This difference between the two readings of de was in (141)(142) can be characterized as a type-token distinction. That is, the weak reading is the variable type reading, while the strong reading refers to the referential token. I assume that on its weak reading, the strong NP is of type e, whereas the strong, referential reading goes with type < ,t>, analogous to the types of weak NPs. In terms of the outlined analysis, this would mean that weak Case on a strong NP can give rise to a weak type-reading. Some support for this suggestion can be found in Finnish. Consider the following example, which is borrowed from Vahamaki (1984): (143)

Tata konetta on nyt kaupoissa this machinepART is now in-stores "This machine is now in the store"

[Finnishj

In (143) the strong subject NP bears partitive Case and the result is a type-reading. If nominative Case had been assigned instead, the NP would have had a referential token-reading. 23

4.5 Incorporation If object NPs on their weak reading have to be interpreted as part of a one-place predicate, then the phenomenon of object incorporation can be conceived as the ultimate morphological realization of this interpretation. Szabolcsi (1986b) provides the following examples; in (144) the object is incorporated under Vbar, whereas the object in (145) cannot be incorporated, due to its definite determiner:

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

116

(144)

(145)

Peter ujsagot olvasott Peter newspaper ACC read "Peter did newspaper-reading" Peter olvasta az ujsagot Peter read the newspaperACC "Peter read the newspaper"

[Hungarian]

In (145) the object follows the verb, which is the unmarked sequence in Hungarian. In (144), on the other hand, the object precedes the verb, which can be taken to indicate that incorporation has taken place. Note the difference in interpretation between (144) and (145). Szabolcsi points out that the objects of transitive verbs that show a definiteness restriction in object position (cf. § 4.2) can also be incorporated under V-bar, as is illustrated in (146). Furthermore, although nouns in the nominative usually do not incorporate, intransitive verbs that exhibit a definiteness effect can incorporate their nominative NP, witness (147): (146)

(147)

Peter tollat talaIt Peter penACC found "Peter found a pen" Lanyok erkeztek giris NOM arrived "There arrived ( some) giris,,24

[Hungarian]

In other languages incorporation is also often restricted to object NPs on their weak reading (cf. e.g. Hopper and Thompson 1980) or even to bare singular nouns. In an English compound like babysitting for example, the word baby does not refer to a specific bab~, but modifies the verb, describing the type of 'sitting' involved. 5 Determiners are altogether excluded in such compounds: (148)

I am (*this, these, some, three) baby-sitting

One must realize, however, that there are different types (or stages) of noun incorporation, and that discussion is possible on the question of what the exact nature of this process is, that is whether it is morphological or syntactical (cf. Mithun 1984, Baker

The Hypothesis

117

1988). In some cases, the constituents retain their separate status, whereas in others incorporation seems to be fully lexicalized. I will not go into this discussion, but I wish to maintain the claim that incorporated NPs are interpreted as part of the predicate. This leaves open the possibility that strong NPs might get incorporated, as long as they get this weak part-of-the-predicate reading. This is what can happen in for instance the Groningen dialect (a Dutch dialect, spoken in the northeastern Netherlands), as observed by Schuurman (1987).26 Consider (149): (149)

Nou mot je ophollen te Pieter Moatje pesten [Groningen dialectI now should you stop to Pieter Moatje tease "Now you should stop teasing Pieter Moatje"

Although the incorporated NP Pieter Moatje in (149) is clearly referential, the effect is that the construction as a whole expresses a [IXed pattern, according to Schuurman. Thus, (149) is about a common activity that can be described as Pieter Moatje-teasing. In this way, the occurrence of a numeral as in (150) can also be explained: (150)

Zai zat bie t roam te drei eerabbels schill en [Groningen dialectI She sat at the window to three potatoes peel "She was sitting at the window, peeling three potatoes"

As Schuurman points out, the predicate te drei eerabbels schillen 'to three potatoes peel' may be used even if not always exactly three potatoes are peeled, but sometimes two big ones or four small ones, as long as the activity can generally be referred to as three potatoes-peel. If this is the case, then the moment one actually sees that the number of potatoes that are peeled is not three, but two or four, the incorporation construction cannot be used at all, that is neither with two or four (since this is not in accordance with the common pattern), nor with three (as this is not in accordance with the concrete situation). We can easily see that the cardinal in (150) strongly behaves like an adjective. Compare (150) to (151):

118

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation (151)

Zai zat aaltied bie t roam te dikke swaarde wollen kouzen braaien [Groningen dialect! she sat always at the window to thick black woollen stockings knit "She used to sit at the window, knitting thick black woollen stockings"

Schuurman concludes that the incorporation construction in the Groningen dialect can be used to describe a concrete situation as an instantiation of a certain type of activity. The above facts about incorporation in the Groningen dialect show that although we are dealing with a very productive and rather free construction here, it can be maintained that an incorporated NP is the ultimate realization of the part-of-the-predicate reading, even in the case of strong NPs. Yet, I make no claims concerning the Case of an incorporated noun, because if incorporation should be viewed as a morphological rather than syntactical process, the incorporated noun might just as well have no Case at all. At least we can say that it cannot have strong Case, given the hypothesis formulated in (119) (see also Ramchand 1993 for a discussion on incorporation).

5.

The relation between syntax and semantics

5.0 Introduction In exploring the grammar of natural language, a principal question concerns the relation between syntax and semantics. Nevertheless, most of the time syntactic and semantic phenomena are examined independently. The theory of government and binding stresses the superiority of syntactic structure and semantic aspects that are beyond the range of the theory remain unexamined. De Mey (1990) considers semantic structure the essential structure of natural language and defends a view according to which semantics precedes syntax. In his opinion, grammar is primarily semantics and the task of semantics is to find interpretable structures. Other formal semanticians do recognize the centrality of syntax, but do not analyze within syntax what can be done as well or even better in semantics. Probably, most linguists will share the view that

The Hypothesis

119

grammar is not a matter of syntax versus semantics, but of finding the best theories of syntax and semantics and the relation between them. In this book, the basic assumption is that the characteristics of certain constructions follow from both syntactic and semantic principles. The present chapter addressed a topic for which it appears to be obvious that syntactic and semantic principles interact, namely the type of Case of an object NP and its interpretation. In most literature on the interaction between syntax and semantics, the view is taken that a mapping procedure is involved, i.e. the semantic representation is considered a mapping from syntactic structure (cf. Diesing, 1990 and related work of Kratzer, 1989). Diesing characterizes the interaction between syntax and semantics as a direct mapping from syntac structure onto semantic representation. I will argue against her approach and propose a more complex relation between these two aspects of natural language.

5.1 Problems for the mapping hypothesis Diesing (1990) supposes that there is a correspondence between syntactic and semantic representations which has the form of a mapping procedure splitting the syntactic tree into two parts that are then mapped into two parts of the logical representation, the restrictive clause and the nuclear scope (cf. chapter 1, §2.1): (152)

MAPPING HYPOTHESIS Material from VP is mapped into the Nuclear Scope Material from IP is mapped into a Restrictive Clause

As a syntactic point of departure Diesing takes a clause structure with two positions for the subject, viz. [Spec, VP] (the VP-internal subject position) and [Spec, IP] (the IP-subject position), as has been proposed in the literature by a.o. Koopman and Sportiche (1991), Fukui and Speas (1986). Under the assumption of such a two-subject model of phrase structure, the mapping hypothesis can be represented as in (153):

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

120

(153) I' P Spec

I'

Spec

VP V V

Xp

According to Diesing, the two possible positions for the subject in the semantic representation which correspond to two possible interpretations of the subject, become apparent through a contrast in the interpretation of bare plural subjects between stage level predicates and individual level predicates. Diesing argues that the contrast between the two types of predicates is actually syntactic, but that it is reflected in the available interpretations of a bare plural subject as a result of the mapping hypothesis. As was pointed out in chapter 1, §3.3, English bare plurals can receive either an existential or a generic reading, witness (154)-(155): (154) (155)

Unicorns are available Unicorns are white

Carlson (1977) notes that stage level predicates as in (154) favour an existential reading, whereas individual level predicates as in (155) trigger a generic reading on their subject. Within a DRT framework, this would mean that on an existential reading, the indefinite appears in the nuclear scope where it is bound by existential closure, whereas a generic reading indicates that the variable introduced by the indefinite is in the restrictive clause and bound by an implicit generic operator. As bare plural subjects of stage level predicates can have either an existential or a generic reading, Diesing assumes that they can appear in either the nuclear scope or the restrictive clause at the level of logical form, while bare plural subjects of individual

The Hypothesis

121

level predicates can only appear in the restrictive clause. But how is the mapping to logical form accomplished, that is, what is the relationship between these two subject positions in the logical representation and the two subject positions in the syntactic tree? In English, subjects appear in [Spec, IPI at S-structure. So, in order to get the correct input for the mapping onto semantic representation, Diesing has to assume that it is only at the level of logical form, LF, which intervenes between S-structure and the level of semantic representation, that there are two positions available for the subject in English. At the level of LF, subjects of stage level predicates can appear in either [Spec, IPI or [Spec, VPI, whereas subjects of individual level predicates can only appear in [Spec, IPI. This involves LF-lowering the bare plural subject of a stage level predicate to the VP-internal subject position in case of an existential reading. Subsequently, subjects in [Spec, IPI are mapped into the restrictive clause, while subjects in [Spec, VPI are mapped into the nuclear scope. Diesing claims that this difference between stage level and individual level predicates can be attributed to different properties of I(nflection) in the two types of predicates. In her approach, the subject of a stage level predicate is base-generated in [Spec, VPI and I does not assign a 8-role to [Spec, IPI. At S-structure the subject of a stage level predicate raises to [Spec, IPI to receive Case, leaving a trace in [Spec, VPI, analogous to raising predicates. As has been argued for subjects of raising predicates (cf. May 1977, 1985), subjects of stage level predicates can then be interpreted as if they have been lowered again at LF, if they get an existential reading. If they remain in [Spec, IPI at LF, they receive a generic reading. In the case of individual level predicates, on the other hand, I assigns a 8-role to [Spec, IPI that is interpreted as has the property P, where P is the property expressed by the predicate. The subject is base-generated in [Spec, IPI but controls a PRO subject in [Spec, VPI which is assigned a 8-role by the verb. This makes individual level predicates analogous to control predicates. Diesing furthermore follows Kratzer (1989) in assuming that stage and individual level predicates are distinguished with respect to the presence or absence of an event argument; this part of Kratzer's theory will come up for discussion in section 5.2.

122

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Obviously, in English the relationship between S-structure and logical representation remains abstract, since all subjects appear in [Spec, IP] at S-structure in English. In German, however, it seems that subjects can also remain in [Spec, YP]. In (156) and (157) the YP-adjoined adverb ja doch 'indeed' is used to identify the position of the subject: (156) (157)

weil Kinder ja doch auf der Stra[3e spielen {Gennanj since children 'indeed' on the street play "since (in general) children play in the street" weil ja doch Kinder auf der Stra[3e spielen since 'indeed' children on the street play "since there are children playing in the street"

Thus, the subject is in [Spec, IP] in (156) and in [Spec, YP] in (157). The translations show that the YP-internal position corresponds to an existential reading, whereas the YP-external position corresponds to a generic reading, as expected. Diesing's analysis hence predicts that the subject of an individual level predicate can only appear in [Spec, IP], as the existential reading is not possible with individual level predicates. This prediction is also borne out: weil Wildschweine ja doch intelligent sind {Gennanj since wild boars 'indeed' intelligent are "since (in general) wild boars are intelligent" (159) *? weil ja doch Wildschweine intelligent sind since 'indeed' wild boars intelligent are "since there are wild boars intelligent"

(158)

The subject of an individual level predicate is base-generated in [Spec, IP] and cannot lower into the YP. Thus, in German treesplitting can occur at S-structure, which means that in deriving the logical representations for the sentences (156)-(158), abstract movement operations such as LF-lowering are not necessary. Subjects in [Spec, YP] are mapped into the nuclear scope with a concomitant existential reading, whereas subjects in [Spec, IP] are mapped into the restrictive clause with a concomitant generic reading.

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123

So far we have seen that Diesing's mapping hypothesis explains a number of facts concerning the interpretation of bare plurals in English and German. But how does her theory account for the interpretation of other weak NPs? Consider for instance the examples in (160) and (161): (160)

(161)

weil zwei Kinder ja doch auf der Strape spielen {GermanI since two children 'indeed' in the street play weil ja doch zwei Kinder auf der Strape spielen since 'indeed' two children in the street play

In (160) the VP-adjoined adverbial phrase indicates that the subject is in [Spec, IP) and we would expect a generic reading, whereas the [Spec, VP) subject in (161) leads us to expect an existential reading. But as a matter of fact, the subject in (160) has a partitive rather than a generic reading (cf. chapter 1, § 3.2), whereas the subject in (161) can have both an existential and a partitive interpretation. In order to save the mapping hypothesis, Diesing must assume that the weak NP in (160) has quantificational force. In other words, the indefinite must be able to form a restrictive clause, with the determiner two functioning as an operator binding the variable introduced in that restrictive clause. In (161), on the other hand, the determiner functions as a cardinality predicate and the weak NP as a whole constitutes a variable that is bound in the nuclear scope by existential closure. In a standard unselective binding approach (cf. Heim 1982, Kamp 1981), all indefinites are analyzed as variables. They get an existential reading when they are caught by existential closure of the nuclear scope, and a variable interpretation when they are bound in the restrictive clause of a modal operator or an adverb of quantification. Diesing (1990) recognizes that in order to be able to maintain the mapping hypothesis, a revision is needed of the classification of indefinites. In addition to indefinites with no quantificational force of their own, there must be indefinites that have quantificational force. To achieve this, Diesing follows Milsark (1974). For our purposes it suffices to note that Diesing recognizes that a weak NP can have both a strong and a weak reading (cf. chapter 1, §3). In this light, Diesing's proposal with

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respect to the difference between stage and individual level predicates can be seen as a syntactic reformulation of Milsark's (1977) observation that only subjects on their strong reading (his 'strong' or 'quantificational' NPs) are compatible with individual level predicates, while stage level predicates allow both classes of NPs. Yet, Diesing has a severe problem at this point. In Diesing's theory the mapping from syntactic structure onto semantic representation can take place at S-structure in a language like German. The subject of a stage level predicate such as in (160)(161) is base-generated in [Spec, VPl and can optionally move to [Spec, IP]. The adverbial phrase is used as a diagnostic for the position of the subject in Diesing's approach. In (160) the subject is to the left of the adverb, i.e. in [Spec, IP], hence we expect a partitive reading. This is exactly what we get. In (161) the subject is to the right of the adverb, i.e. in [Spec, VP], and we expect an existential reading. Indeed, we get this reading but this is not the only reading that arises. As a matter of fact, a partitive reading is also very well possible, which is unexpected. Diesing does not pay much attention to this fact, except for noting that this case is a rather marked case and that it is still possible that the subject is VP-external under the assumption that the adverb has adjoined to IP. It should be noted, however, that the partitive reading is not that marked at all. Suppose we maintain the idea that the adverb indicates whether the subject is in a VP-internal or a VP-external position. Then in the case of a partitive reading in VP-internal position, we would have to assume that the subject moves to [Spec, IP] at LF. But if that were possible, then we would also expect lowering of a VP-external subject into [Spec, VP] at LF, just like was argued for English, which would mean that the scrambled subject in (160) should also be able to get an existential reading, contrary to fact; the scrambled subject can only have a partitive reading. A similar but even more severe problem comes up when individual level predicates are involved. Consider (162) and (163): (162)

weil zwei Wildschweine ja doch intelligent sind [Gennanj since two wild boars 'indeed' intelligent are

The Hypothesis (163)

125

weil ja doch zwei Wildschweine intelligent sind since 'indeed' two wild boars intelligent are

Diesing's assumption that subjects of individual level predicates are base-generated in [Spec, IPI leads us to expect that only (162) is a well-formed sentence in German, an expectation that is not borne out. In (163) the subject seems to be in [Spec, VPI, yet the sentence is well-formed and the subject gets a partitive reading, as in (162). Should this mean that the subject of an individual level predicate can be lowered from its base-generated [Spec, IPI position into [Spec, VPI at S-structure in German? Even if that were a plausible option, we would have to assume that this subject moves back to [Spec, IPI at LF after which the mapping would be achieved, since an existential reading on the subject NP of an individual level predicate cannot possibly arise, whether it is to the right or to the left of an adverbial phrase at S-structure. In short, Diesing's mapping hypothesis seems to be incapable of accounting for sentences such as (163), unless we follow her suggestion that a subject as in (163) is VP-external after all, the adverbial being adjoined to IP. Similar facts in Dutch, however, indicate even more clearly that individual level predicates can have VP-internal subjects, as will be shown below. In Dutch, weak subjects in standard subject position almost always get a strong reading (cf. chapter 1, §3.2). Therefore, sentence (164) is ill-formed since a generic reading for the bare plural is almost impossible because of the stage level predicate. In sentence (165), such a generic reading is made possible by the quantificational adverb altijd 'always', and in (166) insertion of er 'there' triggers an existential reading: (164) (165)

(166)

?*

Els zegt dat eenhoorns in de tuin lopen [Dutch} Els says that unicorns in the garden walk Els zegt dat eenhoorns altijd in de tuin lopen Els says that unicorns always in the garden walk "Els says that unicorns always walk in the garden" Els zegt dat er eenhoorns in de tuin lopen Els says that there unicorns in the garden walk "Els says that there are unicorns walking in the garden"

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Diesing follows Reuland (1988) in assuming that [Spec, IP] cannot be empty at S-structure in Dutch. She furthermore assumes that Dutch is like German in that tree-splitting must occur at Sstructure. Given these assumptions, she argues that the Dutch facts are explained by the mapping hypothesis. In sentences such as (164) and (165), the subject is in [Spec, IP] and mapped into the restrictive clause where it receives a generic interpretation. In (166) [Spec, IP] is filled by expletive er 'there' and therefore the subject occupies the VP-internal subject position. Tree-splitting maps the bare plural into the nuclear scope, yielding an existential reading for the bare plural subject. Diesing claims that other weak NPs can be analyzed analogously. (167)

(168)

Els zegt dat twee eenhoorns in de tuin lopen [Dutch] Els says that two unicorns in the garden walk "Els says that two (of the) unicorns are walking in the garden" Els zegt dat er twee eenhoorns in de tuin lopen Els says that there two unicorns in the garden walk "Els says that there are two unicorns walking in the garden"

Diesing argues that in (167) the subject is in [Spec, IP] which gives rise to a partitive reading, whereas in (168) the subject is in [Spec, VP] and it has an existential reading. Crucially, Diesing does not note that the subject in (168) can also have a partitive reading, just as in (167). It can even be made explicit: (169)

Els zegt dat er twee van de eenhoorns in de tuin lopen [Dutch] Els says that there two of the unicorns in the garden walk "Els says that two of the unicorns are walking in the garden"

Clearly, this cannot be explained by Diesing's mapping hypothesis. According to Diesing, the subject is in [Spec, VP] in (168) and

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127

(169) and will therefore be mapped into the nuclear scope so that a partitive reading should be impossible. Individual level predicates spoil the picture even more: Diesing assumes that subjects of individual level predicates are base-generated in ISpec, IP). In Dutch, however, subjects of individual level predicates can occur in er-sentences, witness (170): (170)

Els zegt dat er twee eenhoorns intelligent zijn [Dutch] Els says that there two unicorns intelligent are "Els says that two (of the) unicorns are intelligent"

In (170), in spite of the individual level predicate, the subject appears VP-internal. Apart from the fact that this should not be possible anyhow, the mapping hypothesis would predict that only an existential reading should be possible for the subject in (170), whereas it is only the partitive reading that arises, which by itself is in accordance with Milsark's (1977) generalization according to which individual level predicates trigger strong readings on their subjects.

5.2 Towards an analysis In the previous subsection it became clear that Diesing's (1990) mapping hypothesis cannot elegantly account for the different readings of subjects, while Milsark's (1977) observation that individual level predicates trigger strong readings on their subjects still holds. Consider once more the paradigm given at the end of chapter 1, which shows how all possible strong readings on weak subjects arise in the presence of an individual level predicate: (171) (172)

(173) (174)

A friend of mine is a paleontologist [referential] Two fishes are black [partitive] Fishes are vertebrates [generic] Three fossils are more expensive than two [generic collective]

The question still is why individual level predicates cannot combine with subjects on a weak reading. The explanation could be either

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syntactic or semantic in nature. Diesing tries to give a syntactic analysis of the difference between stage level predicates and individual level predicates. She claims that the difference between the two types of predicates is due to different properties of INFL. Besides the inadequacies of this approach pointed out in the previous subsection, one more problem is that the observation with respect to subjects of individual level predicates also holds in contexts that have been analyzed as small clauses; reconsider (85), repeated below: (85)

I consider [students intelligent)

The bare plural in (85) can only get a strong, generic reading, due to the individual level predicate and despite the absence of INFL. A syntactic analysis in terms of Case cannot be correct either. According to such an analysis, individual level predicates would only be able to license strong nominative Case one way or another, strong Case necessarily giving rise to a strong reading, but then sentence (85) would again be a problem because the NP students is not assigned Case by the individual level predicate but by the matrix verb consider. A semantic explanation for Milsark's principle seems more likely. Suppose we extend the hypothesis developed in this chapter to subjects. Then we can say that subjects on a strong reading function as real arguments (they denote generalized quantifiers), whereas subjects on a weak reading are interpreted as part of the predicate (probably type e, as in standard DRT). Suppose furthermore we have a principle which states that a predicate has to be predicated of an argument; in other words, each predicate should have at least one argument. Syntactically, the functorargument status of predicates and arguments can easily shift, of course, and the principle referred to above is not a formal principle that restricts these possibilities, but rather involves the basic argument structure of verbs and presumably is located in the lexicon. If the predicate is individual level and the subject has a weak reading, then this principle is violated as there is no argument to which the predicate can be applied. If the predicate is stage level, however, and the subject functions as part of the predicate, then there is an argument for this predicate, to wit the

The Hypothesis

129

Davidsonian argument of spatio-temporal location (cf. Kratzer 1989). Kratzer (1989) claims that stage level predicates and individual level predicates differ in argument structure. Stage level predicates are Davidsonian in the sense that they have an extra argument position for spatio-temporal location (cf. Davidson 1967). Individual level predicates do not have this position, which explains why (175) is ambiguous but (176) is not: (175)

a. b. (176)

weil fast aile Fluchtlinge in dieser Stadt umgekommen sind ! Gennan J since almost all refugees in this city perished are "since almost all of the refugees in this city perished" "since almost all the refugees perished in this city" weil fast all Schwane in Australien schwarz sind since almost all swans in Australia black are "since almost all swans in Australia are black"

In (175) the locative PP can be either the realization of the extra argument position or it can function as a restriction of the NP. In (176), on the other hand, it can only function as a restriction of Schwane 'swans' and not as an extra argument of the individual level predicate. If an interpretation of the PP as argument of the predicate is forced, the individual level predicate automatically changes into a stage level predicate, which means that being black becomes a temporary, changeable property. I would like to adopt Kratzer's (1989) idea of an extra spatiolocational argument available in the argument structure of a stage level predicate, but not syntactic extensions such as a structural position for this argument in the D-structure of a sentence and the possible different readings of subjects and objects, following Diesing's mapping hypothesis. Together with the assumption that a predicate has to be predicated of something (there must be an argument), we can account for the fact that individual level predicates necessarily combine with strong subject readings. Consider the pair of sentences below: (177)

Two cats are purring

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(178)

Two cats are black

In (177), which contains a stage level predicate, there are two possible readings for the subject NP. If the subject has a partitive reading, it denotes a generalized quantifier to which the predicate is applied. If the subject has a weak, existential reading, it is interpreted as part of the predicate and this predicate is predicated of an implicit argument (it can be made explicit by for instance in this room at this moment or there). If the subject in (178) would be interpreted as part of the predicate, there would be no argument available to which this predicate could be applied. Therefore, the subject is necessarily quantificational (functions as a real argument). To sum up, I think a semantic analysis based on a difference in argument structure between stage level and individual level predicates together with a principle saying that each predicate needs an argument, explains the fact that individual level predicates can only combine with strong subject readings. The explanation is independent of syntactic factors such as structural position, type of INFL, or type of Case. A consequence of this approach is that so-called O-place predicates are in fact I-place predicates, or, more specifically, stage level predicates. As far as I can see, these verbs are always stage level indeed; well-known examples are weather-verbs: (179)

It's snowing

Finally, let me note the following. At the end of chapter 1 we discussed two linguistic contexts in which all and only strong NP interpretations are allowed. One context involved the subject position of individual level predicates, the other one the scrambled object position. As we have seen, different principles account for the observations with respect to these two types of linguistic environments. In the case of scrambling, the syntactic difference between weak and strong Case appears to be crucial (this will be elaborated upon in the next chapter), whereas in the case of individual level predicates, a semantic principle plays a major role.

The Hypothesis

131

5.3 A modular system In the above I have demonstrated that the mapping hypothesis from syntactic to semantic representation as proposed by Diesing (1990) cannot adequately account for the facts. Maybe the relation between syntax and semantics should not be seen as a mapping from one component to another, but rather in such a way that syntax and semantics function as partly independent subtheories that interact with each other, just as has been proposed for the way subsystems of principles such as Case theory and theta theory interact with each other, without one of them serving as the input of the other. Thus, principles from syntactic and semantic modules can apply to the same representations simultaneously; characteristics of certain constructions follow from both syntactic and semantic principles. Or, if one wishes to maintain the idea of a mapping relation between syntax and semantics, then it cannot be a mapping that proceeds from structural positions only. Only if features such as Case and focus are incorporated into syntactic structure, a mapping hypothesis might adequately account for the facts again. It will often be the case that certain properties of constructions can only be explained if one takes into consideration both syntactic and semantic principles. In this chapter I have shown that apart from syntactic filters, there are also semantic filters that rule out certain constructions as ill-formed. In chapter 3 I will go into the question of which syntactic principle accounts for the fact that NP scrambling is only allowed if an NP bears strong Case and that according to an interactional principle an argument NP must be interpreted as generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. This accounts for the fact that scrambling triggers strong readings. In this way, scrambling of an object results in ungrammaticality either if the verb cannot license strong Case, or if a strong reading is not possible for some other reason. I think these two possibilities should not be reduced to one and the same principle. Earlier, we saw that certain verbs in Hungarian cannot license strong Case and that in Dutch, scramblin1 of an object is only allowed if the predicate is contrastive. 2 But the fact that scrambling of the

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bare plural in (181) is not possible has nothing to do with the contrastiveness of the predicate: (180)

dat ik gisteren katten heb gezien that I yesterday cats have seen (181) * dat ik katten gisteren heb gezien that I cats yesterday have seen "that I saw cats yesterday"

[Dutch]

The reason that (181) is ill-formed is that the only possible strong reading for a bare plural is a generic reading, but this reading is blocked in (181), due to the stage level predicate and the adverb gisteren 'yesterday'. There is no reason to assume the predicate cannot license strong Case, since other weak objects like twee katten 'two cats' can easily occur in this position with a strong, partitive reading. Thus, in scrambled positions only strong Case can be licensed on the object, but strong Case correlates with a strong reading. In (181) a strong reading is not possible for independent reasons, whence the ill-formedness. Consider the slightly different pair of sentences in (182)-(183): (182) (183)

?? dat

ik altijd katten bemin that I always cats love dat ik katten altijd bemin that I cats always love "that I always love cats"

[Dutch]

Compare sentences (181) and (183) where the object has scrambled. I argued that the ungrammaticality of (181) followed from the impossibility of a generic reading for the bare plural, due to the stage level predicate and the adverb. In (183), the predicate is individual level and the adverb is altijd 'always'. The adverb quantifies over cats and indeed, a generic reading is possible. The question arises why (182), where the object has not scrambled, is strange. The adverb always seems to quantify over situations here, but to love cats only denotes one, permanent situation. Therefore, if we replace the adverb by an adverb such as waarschijnlijk 'probably' (184) or if we replace the bare plural by a singular indefinite NP (185), the sentence becomes well-formed again:

The Hypothesis

(184) (185) (186)

dat ik waarschijnlijk katten bemin that I probably cats love dat ik altijd een kat bemin that I always a cat love dat ik een kat altijd bemin that I a cat always love

133 [Dutch[

Apparently, the adverb waarschijnlijk 'probably' does not give rise to a plurality presupposition on the situations or eventualities quantified over, as always does, presumably because an adverb like probably is not in the same way quantificational. In (185) the predicate love a cat denotes a set of different situations, i.e. each cat involves one situation in which I love a cat. Therefore, (185) states that there is no situation such that I do not love a cat in that situation. The NP is interpreted existentially in (185); in (186), however, it is interpreted generically as the adverb quantifies over cats again, such that for each cat it holds that I love it. 28 To summarize, in this section I showed that the mapping hypothesis as proposed by Diesing (1990) cannot be correct. Subsequently, I proposed that the relation between syntax and semantics might be seen as an interactive one, or, if it is characterized as a mapping hypothesis, than rather as a richer one that incorporates features independent of structural positions. The hypothesis introduced in this chapter was that an object NP is interpreted as a generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. In such a joint development of semantic and syntactic representations, certain types of NPs can only be licensed when certain syntactic requirements are met. At S-structure, for instance, type < ,t> can only be licensed on an object if it bears strong Case. But this also holds the other way around: syntactic strong Case can only be licensed on an object NP that has a strong reading. Therefore, we can view strong structural Case as an obligatory type-shifting operator on argument NPs.

6.

Conclusion

In this chapter a hypothesis was developed concerning the relation between type of Case and interpretation of an object NP. Partee

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Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

(1987) argued in favour of a type-shifting perspective in order to account for different NP interpretations. Her approach includes NP types e, , and < ,t>. I argued in favour of one other NP type, namely < , > (predicate modifier). The hypothesis is that an object is interpreted as a generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. It is assumed that the interpretation of an NP of type < ,t>, that is the type of a generalized quantifier, is strong in the sense discussed in the previous chapter. Strong Case is a structural Case licensed at Sstructure. Weak Case, on the other hand, is a structural default Case, licensed at D-structure in a certain configuration. It is not related to a fixed a-role, which distinguishes it from lexical, oblique Case. Weak Case is furthermore weak in the sense that it is restricted to a certain position, and cannot be inherited under A-movement (an analysis for this phenomenon will be presented in chapter 3). An object that bears weak Case is interpreted as part of the predicate. That is, the predicate is interpreted as a one-place predicate. Therefore, the type of the object might be the type of a predicate modifier (type < , » and in that case the verb can be argued to be in fact intransitive (as we saw in the case of atelic activity verbs), or the object functions as a term of type e, in which Case the verb syntactically behaves as transitive. At D-structure weak Case licenses these two types of NPs, which both give rise to the 'part of the predicate' reading. Even NPs headed by a strong or definite determiner can be of one of these semantic types and accordingly get a weak reading, which either means that they function as a predicate modifier (type < , » or as a weak object of type e, in which case their weak reading can be characterized as a variable type-reading. S-structural Case can be viewed as a type-shifting operator that shifts an e-type NP into a quantificational < ,t> type with a concomitant strong reading. Some strong NPs such as every woman can only have a strong, quantificational reading which means that strong Case must be licensed on these NPs (they are < ,t> at D-structure already, but weak Case cannot license this type; only S-structure Case can). Strong Case cannot be licensed on < , > type NPs at all, which is in accordance with the fact that if a verb is characterized as atelic,

The Hypothesis

135

then the strength or definiteness of the NP that functions as a predicate modifier cannot affect this aspectual feature anymore. In the next chapter the theory presented in this chapter will be further developed and tested by applying it to linguistic phenomena, to wit scrambling and existential sentences. These phenomena involve constructions that are subject to different syntactic and semantic restrictions. It will be shown that both types of restrictions interfere with sentence structure in a way that can adequately be accounted for in the model.

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NOTES 1. At a later stage in Chomsky (1981), (ii) is modified in order to accomodate verbs that are ergative in the sense of Burzio (1981) (verbs that subcategorize for a formal NP object but do not assign Case to it).

2. If we follow Chomsky (1995), then we can no longer refer to S- of D-Structure as levels of representation, but we can maintain the idea that inherent Case is associated with theta marking while structural Case is not. 3. Safir (1987) offers a more explanatory account of the fact that definite and indefinite NPs behave differently with respect to principle C. He suggests that NPs in existential sentences are in fact a type of predicate and that principle C must be replaced by another principle which states that a potential referring expression is either a predicate or else free. Subsequently, the linking between existential there and the thematic subject is possible if the NP is understood predicatively, which explains the definiteness restriction. Clearly, this explanation of the definiteness restriction does not solve the problems discussed above. Besides, as Safir admits, this explanation can only be partial, since definites such as the president can be used predication ally although they are not allowed in existential sentences, and cardinal NPs such as three women are not allowed in predicational contexts, whereas they are in existential sentences. 4. According to the un accusative hypothesis (cf. Perlm utter 1978, Burzio 1986), verbs of this class do not assign Case to their selected D-structure object. Burzio calls this class of verbs ergative. 5. A problem for this view might be that in English the pronoun mostly shows up in the accusative Case. English also seems to prefer the accusative Case for the left dislocated element in constructions like (44). McCloskey (1986) argues that for Modern Irish the accusative is the default Case. This indicates that if something like a universal default Case for NPs exists, the morphological choice of this Case should be parametrized for languages. In Klima (1964b) it is argued that English default case

The Hypothesis

137

for pronouns has shifted from nominative to accusative. French certainly does not seem to have nominative default for pronouns. One might also wonder to what extent this phenomenon is restricted to pronouns, hence not applicable to other NPs. 6. I do not deny that partitive Case in Finnish has a lexical use as well, but so does Turkish ablative Case, and also instrumental antipassive Case in Inuit (cf. Bok-Bennema 1991). 7. Vainikka (1989) also claims that structural default (in our terms weak) Case on an object involves an NP staying in its original D-structure position. 8. It should be noted that if the NP remains in its D-structure position, the sentence is also bad, but for independent reasons, as pointed out by Belletti. In that case the unlicensed status of pro in the subject position of the infinitival clause is the source of ungrammaticality, cf. (i) and its structure in (i'): (i) * Sembra essere arrivati tre ragazzi [Italian] seems to have arrived three boys (i') INPprol. sembra hplNpproji essere arrivati [Nptre ragazzirl This is in accordance with the fact that a sentence like (ii) is indeed grammatical, witness its structure in (ii'). [Italian] (ii) Sembrano essere arrivati tre ragazzi seem to have arrived three boys (ii') INPprojjj sembrano [IP[NpeL essere arrivati [NP tre ragazzijJj In (ii) the verb assigns inherent Case to tre ragazzi 'three boys' in its original position and pro is licensed by Agr. 9. Belletti claims that only in configurations of the form in (i) can the prediction of her hypothesis be tested because only here can we be reasonably sure that the relevant postverbal NP is in the object postion of V: (i) NP}lvp V NP 2 PPj for V = un accusative or passive, NP 2 its direct argument and PP a subcategorized complement of V 10. As a matter of fact, Belletti partitive reading, since she assumes partitive reading. In the light of the the term existential reading in order

calls an existential reading a that partitive Case expresses a previous chapter, I will stick to to avoid confusion.

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11. lowe this example to Anne Vainikka. Thanks to Rene Mulder for drawing my attention to it. 12. The verb consider always combines with an individual level predicate (strange in the example in (87)) which accounts for the strong reading of the ECM object. The fact that the object bears partitive Case in (87) although it gets a strong, generic reading, is due to the irresultative aspect of the predicate. (Ir)resultativeness is stronger than strong/weak readings, as will become clear in the next section. 13. The distinction telic/atelic is comparable with the distinction resultative/i"esultative or with the distinction tenninative/durative that is often made. I will not go into the discussion about which terms should be used or whether further refinements are necessary, but I refer the interested reader to literature on aspect (e.g. Verkuyl 1989). 14. The most unmarked translation would be The president shot at a bird. 15. In chapter 1 it was argued that bare plurals can have a strong reading, namely a generic reading, but following the line of the argument, we would have to say that this reading is not available in the object position of telic activity verbs. 16. Sentences where both the subject and the object are singular count nouns are often ambiguous with respect to definiteness (cf. Karlsson 1983). 17. The fact that in the English translation the object is realized as a PP is not an argument in itself. Henriette de Swart points out (p.c.) that in French (40) can be translated as (i): (i) Tu l'interesses [French} you NOM him/her interest Note that you is realized as a subject NP and not as a PP in (i), although it can also be realized as a PP in another type of construction, witness (ii): (ii) Elle/il s'interesse a toi [French} S/he SE interests in you In Dutch, too, both possibilities are open:

The Hypothesis (ii)

(iii)

Zij/hij is in jou gei"nteresseerd S /he is in you interested Jij interesseert haar /hem you interest her/him

139

[Dutch]

18. A related predicate such as afleggen 'cover' is really transitive in that the object can be passivized and not deleted, as shown in (i) and (ii): (i) Enkele kilometers werden gisteren afgelegd (ii) * Ik heb gisteren afgelegd 19. Scrambling is possible as soon as the affirmative particle wei is added to the predicate: (i) omdat een krant enkele artikelen meestal wel bevat [Dutch] because a newspaper some articles mostly AFF contains "because usually a newspaper DOES contain some articles" In this way the negated predicate becomes an alternative (wei bevatten 'does contain' versus niet bevatten 'does not contain'), hence the predicate is contrastive, and the strong reading that is obtained for the object is a generic collective reading. 20. This was initially pointed out to me by Barbara Partee. 21. One other possibility, suggested to me by Henriette de Swart, is to consider type < < e,t >,t > the basic type of NPs. In that case, one could argue that NPs on a strong reading keep that type, whereas NPs on a weak reading must shift to the type of a detransitivizer < < e, < e,t >, < e,t > >. This would mean that lack of strong structural Case would have the effect of an obligatory typeshifting operation. 22. One might expect that definite objects that are part of idioms always get a weak reading and therefore cannot scramble at all. This is not necessarily the case, however (as pointed out to me by Jan Koster). Consider the following examples: (i) a. omdat zij hem gisteren de bons heeft gegeven [Dutch] because she him yesterday the thump has given

140

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation "because she left him yesterday"

b.

* omdat zij hem de bons gisteren heeft gegeven

because she him the thump yesterday has given (ii) a. omdat zij gisteren de bui al zag hangen because she yesterday the shower already saw hanging "because she already saw it coming yesterday" b. omdat zij de bui gisteren al zag hangen[Dutch] because she the shower yesterday already saw hanging In (i) the expectation is borne out, but not in (ii). In (ii), however, we seem to have a referential reading. That is, de bui 'the shower' does not have to be interpreted literally in order for a referential reading to be possible. A natural implication in (ii) is that the (figurative) shower that is referred to, has broken in the meantime, which makes a referential reading plausible. In other words, although de bui is not literally referential, it can be used as a metaphor for what is in fact referential in the domain of discourse: the event or the problem that is at issue. 23. Compare also Wilkinson (1988) on the construction that kind of animal. Wilkinson discusses the fact that this type of NP can even occur in an existential sentence: (i) There are those kinds of animals in every zoo 24. According to Szabolcsi, an NP that is too "big" to be incorporated (as in (i)) binds an empty category in the incorporated position (Szabolcsi 1986b, p.71): [slv' ej erkezett) ket vagy harom lanyd [Hungarian] (i) arrived two or three giriNOM "There arrived two or three girls" 25. Clearly, although baby has a kind of general reading, it is not a generic reading. No generic statement about babies is involved. 26. A comparable incorporation configuration in standard Dutch would be the so-called aan het V-construction, although this construction is less free and productive than its counterpart in the Groningen dialect.

The Hypothesis

141

27. Maybe these two are actually the same, as Szabolcsi's (1986b) bleached predicates are non-contrastive; I will come back to this in chapter 3. 28. I would still like to maintain that a generic reading is always possible when the object has not scrambled, provided a special intonation. But undoubtedly, such a reading is in some cases easier to obtain than in others.

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Chapter 3

Scrambling, subjects, and the weak-strong distinction o.

Introduction

In this chapter the theory concerning the relation between Case and NP interpretation will be developed in further detail in order to account for a set of linguistic phenomena for which this relation can be argued to playa role. In section 1 the phenomenon of object scrambling in Dutch will be analyzed within the model. I will discuss the issue of why NPs that bear weak Case cannot scramble. Another factor that restricts the scrambling possibilities appears to be due to a universal semantic principle, which I will call the principle oj con trastiven ess . In section 2 we will see that differences between possible subject interpretations in Dutch and English can elegantly be accounted for, under the assumption that the D-structure position of the subject of unergative verbs in English is VP-external, while it is VP-internal in Dutch. This analysis can simultaneously explain some well-known extra position facts in English, and their less wellknown counterparts in Dutch. All in all, it will become obvious that several of the restrictions on existential sentences are instantiations of more general restrictions on possible weak and strong readings of NPs. Scrambling phenomena and the principle of contrastiveness will turn out to play their own role in existential sentences. 143

144

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

The final section will address the topic of the weak-strong distinction. This distinction will have become quite complex by then, because on the one hand determiners can be weak or strong, based on intrinsically semantic properties, whereas on the other hand, NPs can have weak or strong readings, which can often be attributed to syntactic environments, in particular to type of Case assignment. For instance, the fact that strong readings for subjects cannot occur in existential sentences in English, must be attributed to syntax, more specifically to type of Case, whereas strong determiners are not allowed in existential sentences in English because a semantic principle filters them out. In the course of the chapter, it will become clear that the relation between the syntactic and the semantic components of grammar cannot be properly described as a mere mapping of syntactic structural positions into semantic interpretation. A broader outlook on the relation between syntax and semantics, enables us to adequately analyze restrictions on structures and interpretations, restrictions that are more subtle than has often been assumed.

1.

Object-scrambling l

1.0 Introduction In this section object-scrambling III especially Dutch will be analyzed in order to refine the theory with respect to this phenomenon. In Dutch, only NPs that have a strong reading can be scrambled. 2 The correlation between scrambling and a strong reading is attributed to the type of Case that is licensed in different structural positions at different levels of representation. Taking scrambling to be A-movement, I go into the problem of how to account for the fact that weak NPs on a weak reading do not scramble and discuss several solutions. I will show that a mapping hypothesis as advocated in Diesing (1990) and Kratzer (1989) cannot satisfactorily deal with scrambling phenomena. Another factor that appears to play an important role is a universal semantic principle that will be called the principle of con trastiven ess .

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

145

LID-structure versus S-structure In chapter 2, §3.3, it was noted that objects that bear weak Case cannot scramble out of their original D-structure position. Recall the Turkish examples, borrowed from Kornfilt (1990), which are repeated below: (1)

(2) * (3)

Ben dun ak~am . The use of such a type of NP argument is only appropriate in the case of a contrastive predicate. The predicate zijn 'be' in (157) is typically non-contrastive, as the C-set of this predicate only contains to be; the only conceivable alternative is a Hamlet-like not to be, but usually such an alternative is not a member of the C-set. In (158), on the other hand, the predicate is in de min zijn 'be in the garden' and its C-set might contain alternatives like be upstairs and be on the street. Therefore, the strong, partitive reading on the subject is possible. That it is the principle of contrastiveness that explains the difference between (157) and (158), rather than the absence or presence of a lexical coda, can easily be shown in Dutch, as in Dutch other verbs than the typical non-contrastive ones are allowed in existential sentences. Consider (159): (159)

Er slapen twee van de katten there sleep two of the cats

[Dutch}

Sentence (159) is as good as the one in (158), despite the fact that there is no coda. The partitive is permitted here, as it does not violate the principle of contrastive ness; the C-set of slapen 'sleep' obviously contains more than just this element, e.g. be awake. Some related facts are observed in Zwart (1991b). He notes that in Dutch, PPs can usually be extraposed, as can be seen in for instance (160):

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong (160)

a.

199

Ik geloof dat de katten in de tuin spelen [Dutch] I believe that the cats in the garden play Ik geloof dat de katten spelen in de tuin I believe that the cats play in the garden

b.

The interpretation of (160a) is not the same as the interpretation of (160b), however. (160a) can be uttered as an answer to the question What are the cats doing?, whereas (160b) must be an answer to the question What are the cats doing in the garden? In other words, in (160a) the predicate is in de tuin spelen, whereas in (160b) the predicate is spelen. PP-extraposition is only possible if the PP can function independently as the realization of an argumentP If a PP is necessarily interpreted as part of the predicate, it has to remain in its preverbal position. This is for instance the case with more or less lexicalized expressions containing so-called light verbs (cf. Hollebrandse 1992): (161)

a. b.

(162)

*

a. b.

*

dat ik Tarzan in arrest neem that I Tarzan in arrest take dat ik Tarzan neem in arrest that I Tarzan take in arrest "that I arrest Tarzan" dat Tarzan de baby in bad doet that Tarzan the baby in bath does dat Tarzan de baby doet in bad that Tarzan the baby does in bath "that Tarzan baths the baby"

[Dutch]

In (160b) the C-set of spelen 'play' obviously contains many elements (there are numerous possibilities of what cats can do in a garden), but light verbs such as nemen 'take' and doen 'do' are typically non-contrastive. Now, compare (160b) to (163b): (163)

a.

b.

Ik geloof dat de katten in de tuin zijn [Dutch] I believe that the cats are in the garden * Ik geloof dat de katten zijn in de tuin I believe that the cats ARE in the garden

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

200

The ill-formedness of (163b) can be analyzed as a violation of the principle of contrastiveness. The subject of the subordinate clause has a strong, referential reading and hence, the predicate should be contrastive. Be, however, is typically un contrastive. In (163a) the predicate is be in the garden and this predicate does have more than one element in its C-set. The effect of PP-extraposition with respect to the principle of contrastiveness can also be observed in existential sentences, as pointed out by Zwart (1991b): (164)

a. b.

dat er veel katten in de tuin waren that there many cats in the garden were dat er veel katten waren in de tuin that there many cats were in the garden

In Dutch existential sentences, weak subjects can get either a weak or a strong reading. If the subject in (164) gets a strong reading, then the predicate must be contrastive. In (l64a), this is no problem, as be in the garden is contrastive. In (164b), however, the predicate, be, is contrastive, which leaves the weak subject reading as only possible reading in (164b). This is exactly what happens. Zwart (1991b) analyzes these observations differently. He claims that two types of existential sentences must be distinguished, one in which the expletive is treated as a raised predicate (following Moro 1991), and one in which the expletive is classified as a meaningless element that is freely inserted at S-structure and replaced at LF by the associated NP (cf. Chomsky 1986). The latter type of existential sentence allows both weak and strong readings, whereas the former type only allows a weak reading on the subject. If PP-extraposition has taken place, as in (l64b), that PP cannot function as a small clause predicate anymore so that er 'there' must be the raised small clause predicate and only an existential reading is possible. Although Zwart's analysis differs from mine, the idea that an extra posed PP cannot function as small clause predicate anymore, is compatible with my view that it cannot function as part of the predicate anymore. The advantage of my analysis, however, is that I do not need to make a principled distinction between two types of existential sentences.

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

201

One more paradigm that the analysis I propose can account for is instantiated in (165)-(166). The verb zitten 'sit' in Dutch has two readings, a non-literal, non-contrastive reading that can be paraphrased as be and an ordinary contrastive reading, sit. (165)

a.

b.

(166)

a. b.

dat veel taalkundigen in de kroeg zitten {Dutch} that many linguists in the pub sit "that many (of the) linguists are in the pub" dat veel taalkundigen zitten in de kroeg that many linguists sit in the pub "that many ( of the) linguists SIT in the pub" dat er veel taalkundigen in de kroeg zitten that there many linguists in the pub sit "that many linguists are in the pub" dat er veel taalkundigen zitten in de kroeg that there many linguists sit in the pub "that many linguists are/sit in the pub"

In (165a) the subject is in standard position and hence gets a strong, partitive reading (intonational stress falls on the determiner veel 'many'), the predicate is in de kroeg zitten, (literally 'sit in the pub', but meaning 'be in the pub'), which is contrastive. In (165b) the PP has been extraposed, so that it does not belong to the predicate anymore. The contrastiveness of the predicate must now be located in the verb zitten 'sit', which means that only the literal meaning of the verb is allowed. Sentence (165b) can only mean that it holds for many linguists that they SIT in the pub, they do not stand or walk around. In (166) the subject is VP-internal, so that it can have either a weak or a strong reading. In (166a) both possibilities are open; the subject either gets a weak, existential reading (there are many linguists in the pub), or it gets a strong, partitive reading (many of the linguists are in the pub). In (166b) the PP has been extraposed; if the subject gets a strong reading, the predicate must be contrastive, and a reading arises that is comparable to (165b), but it is also possible that the subject gets a weak, existential reading (as in (166a), intonational stress falls on the noun taalkundigen

202

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

'linguists'), in which case the interpretation of (166b) is that it is a statement about the pub: there are many linguists there. In §3.2 I will return to the principle of contrastiveness and examine to what deeper semantic principle it can be attributed.

2.7 Conclusion Many of the restrictions on existential sentences boil down to more general restrictions on possible weak and strong readings of weak NPs. The differences in possible subject interpretations between Dutch and English follow from a difference in type of Case that can be licensed, in accordance with the hypothesis set forth in chapter 2. We can also account for the fact that scrambled NPs always get a strong reading, both in transitive sentences and in existential ones: the principle of contrastive ness which states that a generalized quantifier type NP requires contrastive predication, explains why a contrastive predicate is needed to license a scrambled object as well as a subject on its strong reading in an existential sentence. As far as the definiteness restriction in existential sentences is concerned, we have to distinguish weak and strong NPs in such a way that weak NPs are classified as weak, even if they get a strong reading. The weak-strong distinction will be the topic of the final section. In that section I will propose a characterization of the semantic filter that blocks strong determiners in existential sentences (and explain why it does not block strong readings of weak determiners).

3.

On the characterization distinction

of the

weak-strong

3.0 Introduction Cross-linguistically, the distribution of weak and strong NPs exhibits surprisingly universal patterns which indicates that we are dealing with universal semantic principles. In addition, syntactic restrictions often seem to play an equally important role. Therefore, environments with regard to which weak and strong

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

203

NPs behave differently have been studied extensively by both semanticians and syntacticians (cf. Reuland and Ter Meulen 1987). Yet, this weak-strong dichotomy is often used quite loosely when applied to the semantics or syntactic behaviour of NPs with respect to rather divergent phenomena. In some cases, a closer examination of the facts might prove that in fact different semantic or syntactic phenomena are involved. For instance, different semantic properties divide determiners into several subclasses, some of which may at first sight seem to overlap completely, whereas actually, they only overlap partially. This was also noted by De Jong (1987), who argues that there is a crucial difference between strong determiners that are blocked in existential sentences and strong determiners that are permitted in partitive constructions. In other words, strong denotes two distinct properties of determiners in these particular contexts, according to De Jong. Another illustration of this can be found in the set of sentences as presented in chapter 1, §1.5 to show that the weakstrong distinction applies to more than only existential constructions: (167) (168) (169)

Jackie has some/*all sisters in New Zealand This prison has no/*both windows Manyj*most books have appeared already about linguistics

By now, different explanations for these observations have been found. The weak-strong distinction in (167) and (168) is the result of POC (cf. §1.6 and §2.6), whereas the judgements in (169) are related to type of Case (cf. §2.3). In (167)-(169) the principles at work distinguish weak and strong readings of weak determiners; strong readings of weak NPs involve quantificational NPs and are similar to strong NPs in these environments. With respect to existential sentences in Dutch, it was observed that strong, partitive readings of weak NPs are allowed, yet that strong determiners are not. The question still is what semantic property distinguishes weak determiners from strong ones in existential constructions.

204

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

In this section I will try to straighten out this muddle of weakness and strength. In chapter 1 it was argued that weak NPs can have different kinds of strong readings, namely referential, partitive, and generic readings. Several linguists have tried to catch these different strong readings in terms of one crucial semantic property. Diesing (1990) considers presuppositionality to be the ultimate characterization of strong readings. In §3.1 I will show that this cannot be the right characterization. Instead, the distinction quantificational versus non-quantificational can be maintained and be linked to phenomena such as focus association and presupposition accomodation. Section 3.2 deals with quantificational structures, or more particularly, argument selection of quantifiers. I will show that argument selection of quantifiers does not take place via a mapping from plain syntactic structure to semantic representation. Furthermore, I will look into the principle of contrastiveness again to identify the explanatory principle that underlies it. In §3.3 I demonstrate that different semantic properties of determiners play a crucial role in several linguistic contexts and that grammaticality judgements are most of the time the result of one of these properties or a combination of them, but certainly not always of the same one; a Dutch determiner with some peculiar properties will be examined to this purpose. The semantic filter that excludes certain determiners in existential sentences will be argued to be sensitive to the property of cardinality (cf. §3.4). Partitives must be analyzed in a particular way to fit in with this; the required analysis is provided in the final subsection, §3.5.

3.1 Presuppositionality Diesing claims that strong determiners always have a presuppositional reading, which means that they presuppose the existence of the set of entities the noun refers to, whereas weak determiners are ambiguous between a presuppositional and a nonpresuppositional reading (see also De Jong and Verkuyl 1985). Actually, this claim is rather controversial. In the literature the question whether, for instance, universal determiners presuppose existence or not has been extensively discussed and there are

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

205

important arguments against such a claim. To determine whether a determiner has a presuppositional reading or not, Diesing uses there-sentences as a test. She claims that in there-sentences only a non-presuppositional reading of weak determiners is possible and that this explains why partitives, which she takes to be prototypical of presuppositional readings, are excluded. This characterization of presuppositionality is untenable in view of Dutch er-sentences. Consider for instance the sentences in (170), where an explicit partitive is used in Dutch er-sentences: 18 (170)

Els zegt dat er twee van de eenhoorns in de tuin lopen [Dutch J Els says that there two of the unicorns in the garden walk "Els says that two of the unicorns are walking in the garden"

Before going into this any further, let us first have a look at Diesing's account. Diesing suggests that only strong NPs and weak NPs on their presuppositional reading are raised by Quantifier Raising at LF (cf. May 1977, 1985). Thus, according to Diesing, presuppositional determiners adjoin to IP and form a tripartite quantificational structure. On this account, the restrictive clause defines the set that is quantified over by the operator. Diesing argues that the presupposition of existence induced by strong quantifiers is reflected in the formation of a restrictive clause. This restrictive clause formation is regarded as a syntactic property, the result of OR. The question arises how generics fit into this picture. Originally, the analysis of Diesing and Kratzer was merely based on the behaviour of bare plurals, which were said to have no quantificational force of their own, their different interpretations related to different positions. If the variable introduced by a bare plural ends up in the restrictive clause, then it will be bound by a generic operator and get a generic reading. This cannot be maintained for other weak NPs, for which Diesing argues that the variable introduced by a weak NP on its presuppositional reading ends up in the restrictive clause, where it will be bound by the determiner, so that we get a presuppositional reading. Within this

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

206

new perspective, she assumes that generic indefinites, although they have no quantificational force of their own, do undergo OR and restrictive clause formation. But, as she assumes that generic indefinites end up in the restrictive clause, the question is how the connection between restrIctive clause formation and presuppositionality can be maintained, since generic indefinites are commonly assumed to not presuppose existence. Diesing follows a suggestion of Kratzer that there are in fact existence presuppositions in sentences with generic bare plurals, but that these presuppositions are accomodated into the restrictor of an implicit modal operator. In this way, Diesing maintains a classification of indefinites distinguished by two features, to wit [±quantificational force] and [±OR], which yields three types of indefinites: generic, existential, and presuppositional indefinites. Diesing argues that there are a number of syntactic contexts for which the difference between presuppositional and cardinal readings of weak NPs is crucial. For instance, she notes that certain verbs seem to select or prefer one or the other of the two readings. One of the types of verbs she discusses is the type of what she calls verbs of creation such as write, paint, etc. She argues that since these verbs denote the bringing into existence of their objects, they are incompatible with the notion of pre-existence. Hence, these verbs do not permit a presuppositional reading of a weak object. Thus, the object in (171) has only an existential reading, whereas verbs like read permit a presuppositional reading as well: (171) (172)

Paul usually writes a book about fossil fishes from Solnhofen Paul usually reads a book about fossil fishes from Solnhofen

According to Diesing, as the object in (171) has only just been brought into existence, it cannot be mapped into the restrictive clause, and therefore can only have an existential reading, which is obtained in the nuclear scope. She does not note, however, that the behaviour of verbs of creation in a way resembles that of verbs of destruction, such as to destroy:

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

(173)

207

Paul usually destroys a book about fossil fishes from Solnhofen

A true presuppositional reading of the object as in the paraphrase There is a book about fossil fishes from Solnhofen, such that Paul usually destroys it is not possible in (173). Such a reading is possible in (172), witness the acceptability of the paraphrase There is a book about fossil fishes from Solnhofen, such that Paul usually reads it. 19 The examples in (174)-(176) show that verbs of creation and destruction behave similarly when the object is referential: (174) * Paul usually writes this copy of Fossil Fishes from Solnhofen (175) * Paul usually destroys this copy of Fossil Fishes from Solnhofen (176) Paul usually reads this copy of Fossil Fishes from Solnhofen If Diesing would be right, then the ill-formedness of (174) should be attributed to the fact that a verb like write is not compatible

with presupposing the existence of its object. However, this cannot be taken an explanation in the case of a verb such as destroy, which on the contrary does seem to presuppose the existence of its object. As a consequence, we would expect that we should at least have a presuppositional reading. Yet, verbs of creation and verbs of destruction, or in our terms once-only predicates, behave alike in the above contexts. Therefore, the differences in wellformedness between (174) and (175) on the one hand and (176) on the other hand, needs an account that is not based on presuppositionality of the object. An analysis in terms of presuppositionality is not adequate as can also be concluded from the behaviour of other weak NPs. Recall that Diesing considers partitive NPs prototypical examples of presuppositional NPs: (177) * Paul usually writes two of these three letters (178) * Paul usually destroys two of these three letters (179) Paul usually reads two of these three letters

208

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Diesing does discuss verbs of destruction and also notes the illformedness of examples such as the ones in (175) and (178). She argues, however, that these kind of sentences are odd for pragmatic reasons. Thus, she seems to make a principled distinction between the ill-formedness of (174) which is attributed to syntactic reasons, and the ill-formedness of (175) which is attributed to pragmatic reasons. In my view, both sentences are illformed because the predicates are once-only predicates: a book can only once be destroyed, just as it can only once be written; both types of predicates belong to the class of once-only predicates (cf. § 1.5 of this chapter). The sets of events involved are singleton sets, which blocks quantification (cf. §4.1). Yet, although I reject Diesing's presuppositionality approach, I do not reject the view that quantification involves tripartite structures. A quantificational structure can be divided into an operator (the quantifier), a restrictor (the first argument of the quantifier) and a nuclear scope (the second argument of the quantifier). As pointed out by Partee (1990), this way of splitting quantificational structures can be generalized to various kinds of quantificational structures. Partee (1991) shows that focus often plays an important role in determining what the tripartite structure representing the meaning of a sentence should look like, and that there is a correlation between topic and restrictor and similarly, between focus and nuclear scope. This might explain the fact that the restrictor is often associated with presupposition accomodation.

3.2 Quantificational determiners and their arguments Usually, the study of natural language determiners is restricted to determiners in the subject position of ordinary sentences. Hence, within a relational generalized quantifier framework a determiner is taken to establish a relation between the set of individuals denoted by the noun and the set of individuals denoted by the VP. It should be clear, however, that this cannot be maintained for determiners that are found in certain embedded positions in a sentence. And even in the standard subject position, it is not always fully clear how the first and the second arguments are selected.

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

209

We have seen that Westerstahl (1985) defines many in four different ways within a generalized quantifier framework (cf. chapter 1, §3.2). In his fourth definition of many, the first and the second argument seem to be reversed: Westerstahl's example in (180) is taken to be equivalent to (181):20 (180) (181)

Many Scandinavians have won the Nobel pnze III literature Many winners of the Nobel pnze III literature are Scandinavians

Westerstahl provides a different semantic definition for this use of many, but obviously, if we abstract away from the question which syntactic parts constitute the first and the second argument of the determiner, Westerstahl's definitions of many! and manY4 boil down to one and the same. This is shown in (182): (182)

a. b. c.

Ilmanyll!(N) = {XC:M: IXnNI > k.INi} IlmanY I1 4(N) = {XC:M: IXnNI > k·IXI} manYEAB iff IAnB I > k.1 A I

As long as we know what goes into the first and what into the second argument of the determiner, one semantic definition will do. If we can disconnect the semantic argument structure from the overt syntactic structure, we can maintain the property of Conservativity for manY4 (cf. chapter 1, §1.3). I think it holds for all determiners denoting a relation between two sets that what goes into each argument cannot automatically be derived from plain syntactic surface structure. It is known from the literature (e.g. Partee 1991) that focus structures containing adjuncts can contribute to the determination of what goes into the first argument. Consider for instance the implications in the following examples, in which (183) contains the determiner most, and (184) some: (183)

a. b.

Most cats purr loudly Most cats purr

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

210

(184)

a.

b.

Some cats purr loudly Some cats purr

Traditionally, these implications are judged valid: if it is true that most cats in a certain domain purr loudly, then it is also true that most cats in that domain purr and if it is true that in a certain domain some cats purr loudly, then it must be true that some cats purr. It is very easy, however, to get an interpretation for (183a) such that the implication in (183) is not valid anymore. If we stress loudly in (183a), then an interpretation arises that can be paraphrased as Most cats that purr, purr loudly in which case Most cats purr does not have to be true. In (184), we can have a similar effect, although it does not make a truth-conditional difference in case some gets a weak interpretation. But if we paraphrase some as some but not all, then Some but not all cats purr LOUDLY, meaning Some but not all cats that purr, purr loudly does not imply Some but not all cats purr. Partee (1991) discusses the following example, known from the literature (cf. Krifka 1990): (185)

Most ships pass through the lock [at nightlF

Partee represents the two readings of (185) as follows: (185') MOST, x is a ship, x passes through the lock at night (185") MOST, x is a ship and x passes through the lock sometime, x passes through the lock at night Thus, focus structure seems to affect the argument structure of determiners that denote binary relations. This is reminiscent of the behaviour of adverbs of quantification, as analyzed in De Swart (1991). She characterizes adverbs of quantification such as sometimes, always, and never, as quantifiers over the temporal domain, which means that they denote two-place relations between sets of eventualities or situations. As for the question how these adverbs select their arguments, De Swart observes that they are rather flexible in this respect. Take for instance a sentence as in (186):

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

(186)

2Jl

Mark always knits Norwegian sweaters

Some of the interpretations of (186), which are dependent on what is selected as the first argument of the quantificational adverb, are paraphrased in (187): (187)

a. b. c.

d.

always, when Mark knits sweaters, Mark knits Norwegian sweaters always, when Mark knits, Mark knits Norwegian sweaters always, in every appropriate, contextually determined situation, Mark knits Norwegian sweaters always, when someone is knitting Norwegian sweaters, it is Mark who knits Norwegian sweaters

De Swart calls the type of relation in the different readings of (186) sentence-internal. The syntactic argument of the adverb of quantification (the clause in (186) except the adverb) is split up into two parts which provide the arguments of the quantifier. In the literature on adverbs of quantification (cf. Lewis 1975), adverbs are usually studied in contexts in which they take two clauses as their arguments, as, for instance, in (187a). In (187a), the first argument of the adverb (the restrictor) is provided by the whenclause, and the second (the nuclear scope) by the main clause. In (186) there is only one clause available, and as a consequence, the quantifying adverb must take both its arguments sentenceinternally. According to De Swart, the flexibility in determining the two arguments in (186) is related to the general phenomenon of focus association (cf. Rooth 1985). In conclusion, the correspondence between syntax and the argument selection of quantificational determiners cannot merely be accounted for by structural positions only. In general, it seems to be the case that the first argument (the restrict or) always contains the common noun, whereas features such as focus can determine what else can go into the restrictor part (see also De Hoop and Sola, to appear, and De Hoop, 1995). In §3.5 of this chapter, I will argue that in the embedded determiner position of a

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

212

partitive construction, quantificational determiners can even select their arguments NP-internally. Abstracting away from how the arguments of a quantificational determiner are selected, I would like to elaborate a little upon the principle of contrastiveness, POC, that was for the first time introduced in the present chapter, §1.6., according to which the predicate of a quantificational NP must be contrastive. POC is essentially a principle about the relation between quantificational NPs (the quantifier and the restrictor in a tripartite structure) and their predicate (the nuclear scope). The predicate must be contrastive in that alternative predicates must be available in the C-set of the predicate. In other words, the predicate that functions as the second argument of the quantifier must be significant. A predicate that is non-contrastive has no alternatives, hence has no new information to add to the restrictor part. In fact, non-contrastive predicates are in a way already presupposed as part of the restrictor. In (188) and (189) the object has scrambled, which means that it gets a strong reading. Following POC, the predicate must be contrastive in these examples: (188)

(189)

* omdat ik nachtmerries altijd droom

[Dutch] because I nightmares always dream "because I always DREAM nightmares omdat ik nachtmerries altijd 's nachts droom because I nightmares always at night dream "because I always dream nightmares AT NIGHT"

Obviously, nightmares only exist by virtue of being dreamt, so that dream is a presupposition of nightmares and belongs to the restrictor if nightmares gets a quantificational (generic) interpretation. We can argue that either the nuclear scope is empty or it is filled with a dummy, already presupposed element. In fact, this is also how Szabolcsi (1986a, 1986b) characterizes certain predicates in Hungarian that do not allow for a strong reading. She calls these predicates bleached or empty predicates and suggests that these predicates do not assign a 8-role to their object. In (189) the nuclear scope contains the predicate dream at night, which is contrastive: a possible alternative is dream during the day. In other words, POC states that constructing a

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

213

quantificational, tripartite structure is only appropriate if the nuclear scope contains a predicate that is not presupposed already, not a dummy or empty predicate. This is not surprising: just like a predicate cannot hang in the air, but needs an argument, as we saw in chapter 2, §5.2, we can now say that a real argument (a quantificational NP) must not hang in the air, but needs a significant (i.e. contrastive) predicate. POC should not be confused with a prohibition on expressing tautologies in natural language. The following tautology is not prohibited by POC and accordingly, it is perfectly grammatical: (190)

Every linguist is a linguist

The quantificational NP requires a significant, i.e. contrastive, predicate, and be a linguist is indeed a contrastive predicate in that its C-set contains more than one member. So, despite the fact that the predicate that goes into the nuclear scope, is a repetition of the predicate that occupies the restrictor (and as a consequence turns the expression into a tautology), it is not a dummy or empty predicate. The well-formedness of (190) is therefore in accordance with POC.

3.3 A case study: Dutch sommige 21 In Dutch there are two determiners which are generally translated into English by some, viz. enkele and sommige. At first sight, these two determiners are very much alike, but a closer look reveals some important differences. The best-known difference is that sommige cannot occur in Dutch existential sentences, whereas enkele can (cf. Zwarts 1981, De long 1983). This is illustrated in (191) and (192): (191) * Er zijn sommige eenhoorns in dit bos (192) Er zijn enkele eenhoorns in dit bos there are some unicorns in this forest

[Dutch]

In order to understand this difference in grammaticality, one should translate enkele as unstressed some (cf. Milsark 1977),

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

214

meaning 'several', and sommige as 'some (of the)', 'certain'. The question arises whether this difference between sommige and enkele can be accounted for by the definitions of either Barwise and Cooper (1981) or Keenan (1987) (see chapter 1, §1.5). As sommige cannot appear in an existential sentence, it should turn out to be strong within the approach of Barwise and Cooper, unlike its counterpart enkele and English some. According to them, existential sentences are interpreted as meaning that E is a member of the quantifier, which means that for strong determiners the result should be a tautology or contradiction. This can be tested by sentences of the form Det N is/are N. For instance, All unicorns are unicorns is a tautology, but Three unicorns are unicorns is not, as the truth value of this sentence depends on whether or not there are any unicorns in the model. Now, if we consider the sentences in (193) and (194), sommige and enkele both seem to be weak, i.e. the truth values of these sentences depend upon the model; (193) and (194) are tautologies nor contradictions (cf. Thijsse 1983): (193) (194)

Sommige eenhoorns zijn eenhoorns Enkele eenhoorns zijn eenhoorns . . some UUlcorns are UUlcorns

[Dutch]

A way out of this is to classify sommige as a presuppositional determiner (like neither or both), which would make (193) true in every model in which there are any unicorns and otherwise undefined. This is how Zwarts (1981) solves the problem, but as De Jong (1983) points out, his definition seems to be merely based on the behaviour of sommige in existential sentences. Let us now examine whether Keenan's (1987) definition of existentiality properly accounts for the distinction between enkele and sommige. According to Keenan, a determiner is existential if a sentence of the form Det N VP is equivalent to Det N&VP exist. For example, all is not existential, as All unicorns are white is not equivalent to All white unicorns exist, whereas three is, as Three unicorns are white is equivalent to Three white unicorns exist. At first sight, it seems that Keenan's test works well for sommige, as it comes out as strong, since (195a) and (195b) are not equivalent:

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

(195)

a.

b.

Sommige eenhoorns zijn wit some unicorns are white Sommige witte eenhoorns bestaan some white unicorns exist

215 [DutchJ

The proposition in (195b) implies that other white unicorns do not exist. The a- and b-sentence are not equivalent which means that sommige is not existential. However, if we replace sommige in (195) by enkele, then the unmarked reading of (195b) again implies that other white unicorns do not exist. There is another reading for the b-sentence which is obtained when the adjective is stressed, namely that only some WHITE unicorns exist, but no reading is equivalent to that of the a-sentence, which simply states that some of the unicorns are white. In fact, Keenan's test-sentences are not appropriate for Dutch, because subjects in standard subject position get a strong reading in Dutch (cf. §2.2). In English, only strong NPs in standard subject position cause a reading which makes the b-sentences trivially true, but in Dutch this holds more generally for all NPs. In order to get the desired existential reading in Dutch, we need to use an existential sentence, but then we are back at the starting point, since sommige and other strong determiners are not allowed in this type of sentence. De long (1983) claims that sommige is presuppositional and her claim is based on the fact that sommige always gets a partitive reading, which is unmistakably correct as such, i.e. sommige wei 'some do' implies andere niet 'others don't'. De long's claim that sommige is equivalent to enkele van de 'some of the', however, cannot be correct, as we have seen that the latter one can occur in an existential sentence in Dutch. One argument De long (1983) provides in favour of the hypothesis that sommige is equivalent to enkele van de 'some of the' is their similar behaviour in measure phrases: (196) Enkele jaren geleden is zij gestopt met drinkerfDutchJ (197) * Enkele van de jaren geleden is zij gestopt met drinken (198) * Sommige jaren geleden is zij gestopt met drinken "Some (*of the) years ago she stopped drinking"

216

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

De Jong argues that sommige is excluded here because it presupposes existence, just like enkele van de. But let us examine these examples more carefully. An important factor in the above sentences is that we are dealing with a linearly ordered set, the set of years. The ungrammaticality of (197) is due to the use of the partitive construction, because enkele van de jaren 'some of the years' refers to a finite set of years, which does not exist in the given (our) domain of discourse. Sentences like (199) are illformed for the same reason: (199) * De meeste/alle jaren geleden is zij gestopt met drink en [Dutch] "Most/all years ago she stopped drinking" Sentence (198), however, is ill-formed for another reason. Sommige picks out certain years that do not form a sequence. In fact, this determiner is unable to count successive years the way the other determiners do; it has to pick out certain years that are distinct from other years on account of a qualitative property. As soon as we consider a context in which the finiteness of the set the noun refers to does not lead to ungrammaticality, we can observe this major difference between sommige and other determiners. A context such as ... verstrijken 'go by' is similar to ...ge/eden 'ago' 111 many respects, as will be clear from the following sentences: (200) Enkele jaren verstrijken (201) * Enkele van de jaren verstrijken (202) * Sommige jaren verstrijken "Some (*of the) years go by"

[Dutch]

(203) * De meeste/alle jaren verstrijken "Most/all years go by" In these examples the number of years is not contextually restricted, so that the grammaticality judgements are similar to those for (196)-(199). We can use a perfect tense with this predicate, however, which makes the finiteness of the set of years acceptable in a proper context. For instance, take the fairy-tale of the Sleeping Beauty who will sleep for exactly hundred years. In

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

217

that case we have a finite set of years and the sentences below are well-formed: (204) (205)

Toen enkele van de jaren verstreken waren, ... "After some of the years had gone by, ... " Toen de meeste/alle jaren verstreken waren, ... "After most/all years had gone by, ... "

The only determiner for which the finiteness of the set of years does not result in grammaticality is sommige: (206) * Toen sommige jaren verstreken waren, ... "After some years had gone by, ... " Sommige yet the Sommige also lead

jaren 'some years' cannot refer to a sequence of years, predicate requires such an uninterrupted sequence. can be compared to an adjective like certain which will to a bad sentence in this context:

(207) * After certain years had gone by, ... Intuitively, the sentences in (206) and (207) are ungrammatical because it cannot be the case that certain years go by, while other years which are in between do not. Sommige refers to a certain subset of the set the noun refers to the members of which are related to each other by an implicit or explicit property; this set need not be finite. Consider the difference between (208) and (209): (208) (209)

Van enkele glazen wijn word ik dronken Van sommige glazen wijn word ik dronken "After some glasses of wine I'll get drunk"

[Dutch]

The unmarked reading for (208) is that after drinking a certain amount of wine, namely several glasses, I will be drunk. This reading is not possible for (209). (209) can only mean that there is a qualitative property that distinguishes glasses of wine, such that some glasses of wine are such that they make me drunk, while others will not.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

218

At this point, I would like to argue that one of the properties that makes sommige different from most other determiners is the fact that sommige does not satisfy the principle of Quantity (cf. chapter 1, § 1.3), which states that all (logically constant) determiners are insensitive to individual traits of objects. This means that only the cardinalities of the sets involved matter; individual features of the objects involved should not play a role. We have seen, however, that sommige is concerned with the quality of the objects in the sense that it requires the members of the subset it denotes to be related to each other by a certain (implicit or explicit) common property. This does not mean that sommige is independent of the number of individuals, but rather that it also depends on other things. Sommige is not the only determiner that does not satisfy Quantity; other examples are demonstratives like this and those and possessives like Jane's. Van Benthem (1983) shows that Quantity also fails for determiner expressions consisting of a determiner and an adjective such as all black. Sommige resembles these expressions in a way, as it seems to be a determiner and an adjective (cf. certain) at the same time. Its adjectival behaviour manifests itself in the following linguistic context: Sommige katten zijn doof, namelijk witte [Dutch] some cats are deaf, namely white (cats) (211) * Enkele/drie/alle/de meeste katten zijn doof, namelijk witte some/three/all/most cats are deaf, namely white (cats) (210)

It is important to realize that sommige cannot be a true adjective:

expressions like veel sommige katten 'many some cats' are illformed. In order to explain the fact that sommige in (206) gives rise to ill-formedness, whereas other determiners, the weak as well as the strong ones, do not, we have to combine two essential properties of sommige: its inherent partitivity and its lack of Quantity.22 These two properties make sommige unable to simply count a linearly ordered sequence of years. By now it should be evident that the difference between sommige and other determiners can

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

219

only be accounted for if we take several properties of these determiners into account. The weak-strong distinction is obviously too rough to make the right predictions for all constructions. Several aspects of the meaning of sOl1ll1lige play their own part and none of them is in itself sufficient to account for all the distributional properties of this determiner.

3.4 The semantic filter in existential sentences In the previous subsection we have not yet arrived at a proper explanation for the fact that sOl1ll1lige is not allowed in existential sentences. Most definitions of the weak-strong distinction define implicit or explicit partitive readings of weak NPs as strong (cf. Milsark 1977, De Jong 1987, Johnsen 1987; an exception is Comorovski 1988), but the Dutch facts show that these analyses are not on the right track. One possibility is to stick to the claim that sOl1ll1lige is blocked in existential sentences because of its presuppositionality. Suppose that sommige N presupposes existence, in the sense that it remains undefined if the set denoted by N is emtpy (cf. Strawson 1950). Notoriously, presuppositional determiners come out as strong following the definition of Barwise and Cooper (1981). If we do this, we have to guarantee at the same time that explicit or implicit partitives do not come out as strong on this definition. This can be achieved if we follow Barwise and Cooper in their cat ego rial analysis of partitive of. According to them, of NP is interpreted as the intersection of all sets in the denotation of the NP (i.e. the generator set of this NP), which gives of NP the semantic status of a common noun (i.e. a set of individuals). Thus, according to their theory, partitive NPs have the same form as Det N and should be allowed in existential sentences as long as the first determiner is not strong. Within Keenan's (1987) analysis this cannot be achieved as easily, since according to him, partitives consist of a complex determiner Det of det and a common noun, and the non-existential nature of such a complex determiner would presumably rule it out in existential sentences. Another possible solution lays in Milsark's (1977) description of weak determiners as cardinal ones, which intuitively still seems

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

220

very plausible. Certainly, a determiner that violates Quantity, such as sornrnige, cannot be cardinal anyway. The question is what an appropriate definition that does not block partitives should look like. Keenan provides the following definition: Z3 (212)

DEFINITION A (one-place) function f from properties to sets of properties is cardinal iff for all properties PI' Pz, ql' qz if IpI&qll = Ipz&qzl then PI E f(ql) iff pz E f(qz)

So, if the number of cats in the garden (lpI&q11) equals the number of unicorns in the forest (Ipz&qzl), then it holds that the property of being in the garden is an element of the set of properties denoted by three cats (PI € three(ql)) if and only if the property of being in the forest is an element of three unicorns (Pz € three(qz}). The main question is whether partitives such as three of the come out as cardinal according to this definition. That is, can it be maintained that if the number of cats in the garden equals the number of unicorns in the forest, it holds that the property of being in the garden is an element of the set of properties denoted by three of the cats if and only if the property of being in the forest is an element of three of the unicorns? As a matter of fact, I think it can, but only if the N is not defined here as presuppositional; that is, it does have a denotation if the set N denotes is actually empty, viz. the empty set of properties. Otherwise, we would run into trouble in case one of the sets under consideration is undefined, for instance when the number of cats in the garden equals the number of unicorns in the forest, both being zero, and the property of being in the garden is not an element of the set of properties denoted by three of the cats, but we cannot say anything about whether the property of being in the forest is an element of the set of properties denoted by three of the unicorns, since this set is not defined, as the set of unicorns is empty. As a matter of fact, in Keenan's definition an NP like the two unicorns indeed denotes the empty set of properties in a model which does not contain exactly two unicorns. This account avoids the problem of having to decide in a principled way whether a determiner denotation fails to

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

221

have a certain property in its domain, or whether it has the property in its domain but assigns to it the empty set. A remaining question concerns the status of determiners such as many and few. Can they be cardinal on their strong, partitive reading? It does not seem possible to maintain that if the number of cats in the garden equals the number of unicorns in the forest, then being in the garden is a property in the set denoted by many of the cats if and only if being in the forest is in the set many of the unicorns denotes. This is because it is in fact not just the number of cats in the garden or the number of unicorns in the forest that matters, but rather the number of the cats in the garden and of the unicorns in the forest. The cats denotes a set of contextually given cats, and many of them refers to something completely different than many cats. Consequently, I claim that many on an absolute reading (cf. Westerstahl's 1985 definition of rnanY3' see chapter 1, §3.2) is cardinal: if the number of the cats in the garden equals the number of the unicorns in the forest, then being in the garden is a property of many of the cats if and only if being in the forest is a property of many of the unicorns. Evidently, this way of analyzing many of the cats depends on the analysis of partitives in general. In Keenan's definition of cardinality, it must be possible that the property ql refers to the property of belonging to a set of contextually indicated cats just as in other cases it refers to the property of belonging to the set of cats, i.e. being a cat. In the following subsection, an analysis of partitives is provided that is coherent with the view taken here. It seems that Milsark's idea that a semantic filter allows only cardinal determiners in existential sentences, can still be maintained under Keenan's definition of cardinality, and under some particular assumptions concerning the semantics of partitives, to which I will come back in the next subsection. The reader should keep in mind, though, that even if the property of cardinality appears to be the crucial semantic property that determiners must have in order to be permitted in existential sentences, it need not necessarily be the case that is also the crucial property in contexts reminiscent of existential sentences. Take for instance the distribution of Dutch quantitative er (comparable to French en en Italian ne), that obviously seems to establish a weak-strong effect:

222

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation (213)

Ik heb er enkele/veel/drie/geen [Dutch] I have there some/many/three/none "I have got some/many/three/none (of them),,24

(214) * Ik heb er alle/beide/sommige/de meeste 25 I have there all/both/some/most The facts are more complicated than at first sight. Dutch er denotes a kind of partitive function, which blocks universal determiners. Besides, the verb hebben 'have' is non-contrastive, which rules out the other strong determiners in accordance with POe. Therefore, if we replace the non-contrastive predicate by a contrastive one, only the universal determiners are still excluded: (215) (216)

* Ik heb er alle/beide gelezen I have there all/both read Ik heb er sommige/de meeste gelezen I have there some/most read "I read some/most (of them)"

3.5 Partitives It is commonly assumed that quantificational determiners select sets of individuals, as denoted by nouns and VPs. This only holds for determiners that combine with count nouns and not for determiners that go with mass nouns. I will follow L0nning (1987a) in his analysis of quantificational mass determiners. He proposes a semantic model for mass nouns that is based on the concept of a Boolean algebra, in which mass determiners denote relations between elements of the algebra. 26 Within L0nning's approach, it can be argued that the determiner all takes an element as its first argument both in (217a) and (21Th). In (217a) the first argument is the element denoted by water, whereas in (21Th) it is the element denoted by the water.

(217)

a. b.

All water disappeared All the water disappeared

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

223

If all is used with count nouns, similar observations can be made: (218)

a. b.

All cats disappeared All the cats disappeared

I suppose that in (218), all denotes a binary relation between sets of individuals; in (218a) the first argument is provided by the set denoted by the common noun cats, i.e. the set of cats, whereas in (218b), the first argument of all is given by the set denoted by the cats, that is a set of contextually given cats. Most determiners do not behave similarly, however, as can be concluded from the behaviour of the mass determiner much and the count determiner many: (219) (220)

a. b. a. b.

Much water disappeared

* Much the water disappeared Many cats disappeared

* Many the cats disappeared

Although the water is potentially element -denoting and the cats setdenoting, as can be taken to follow from their occurrences in (217) and (218), they cannot directly occur in construction with determiners like much and many. Notably, insertion of partitive of turns the sentences into well-formed ones again: (221)

a. b.

Much of the water disappeared Many of the cats disappeared

The elements or sets denoted by bare nouns are directly accessible to most determiners, but elements or sets denoted by definite descriptions are not. In these cases, the function of partitive of is to make such an entity or set accessible to the higher determiner, and I claim that this is in fact the only function of partitive 0[.27 In other words, within the class of quantificational determiners a distinction should be made between determiners that take entities of type e as their first argument and those that take sets of individuals of type as their first argument. In English, determiner expressions like half (of), 20% of, one third of, and much (of) are of the former class, determiners such as three (of)

Case Configuration alld Noun Phrase Interpretation

224

and many (of) of the second, whereas determiners like some (of), all (of), and most (of) are ambiguous in this respect, as they can take arguments of both types. Let me note that whether determiner expressions belong to either one or the other or to both classes is a language specific matter. In Dutch, as opposed to English, enkele (van) 'some (of)' takes only arguments of type , whereas veel (van) 'many/much (of)' relates either entities or sets of entities. In this way, we can distinguish two types of partitive constructions, the type depending on the class the higher determiner expression belongs to, which I will call entity partitives and set partitives. Entity partitives are headed by determiner expressions that select entities as their arguments, set partitives by determiners that select sets as arguments. In this way we can account for the fact that half of the water is well-formed, but *one of the water is not. In my approach, the determiner one is looking for a set of entities to function as its first argument, but such a set is not available, since the water denotes an element of type e (cf. L0nning 1987a). This also explains the well-formedness of half of the population and half of a cookie and the ungrammaticality of *one of the population and *one of a cookie. If this analysis is on the right track, then we must conclude that an NP like the linguists can denote a (complex) entity as well as a set of entities, since half of the linguists and one of the linguists are both well-formed, whereas an NP such as Jane and Jackie can denote a complex individual (cf. half of Jane and Jackie), but not a set of entities (cf. *one of Jane and Jackie).28 In the literature a great deal has been written about which NPs can be of type e (cf. a.o. Ladusaw 1982, Link 1983, L0nning 1987b); a remaining issue concerns the embedded NPs in setpartitives. Firstly, let me note that I make a distinction between relational or quantificational and non-relational or nonquantificational readings of determiners. A similar distinction was made for adverbs of quantification (De Swart 1991). De Swart discusses non-relational interpretations of adverbs like often, seldom, sometimes, etc. An example of a non-relational reading of an adverb of quantification is found in (222): (222)

Jane seldom complains

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

225

In (222) we can obtain a relational interpretation under the assumption that the restriction on the quantifier is implicit and given by the context, but there is also a simpler reading possible on which the adverb does not establish a relation between two sets, but on which the frequency with which Jane complains is described as low in the domain of discourse. De Swart extensively argues that pure frequency readings are not equivalent to relational readings. The prototypical example of a determiner that easily gets a non-relational reading is the; in that case it yields a collective reading and the N can denote a set of entities of type . Partee (1987) reserves this type for predicative positions only; it will be clear from the discussion so far that I take this type to be the type that NPs in the embedded position of set-partitives must have. If a determiner gets a non-relational interpretation, it cannot be of type < , < ,t> as it does not function as a binary relation. Instead, it functions as a one-place functor or operator of type < , >. The fact that the can be interpreted as nonquantificational, yielding a collective reading, makes the the most felicitous determiner in the embedded position of a set-partitive. Other determiners that share this property are demonstratives such as these and genitives such as my and lackie's. These determiners are exactly the ones that are the most appropriate within setpartitives, as was observed a long time ago and formulated in the partitive constraint (cf. J ackendoff 1977). Not every determiner can get a non-relational reading (i.e. be of type < , »; English both, for example, cannot. Barwise and Cooper (1981), who give a formal definition of definite determiners based on the concept of generator sets and argue that exactly those are allowed in partitives, admit that they do not have an explanation for the contrast between the two and both: they both have a non-empty generator, hence both should be acceptable in the embedded determiner position of a partitive. Ladusaw (1982) and Hoeksema (1984) both recognize that the embedded NP in a partitive must have a collective reading and incorporate this insight into an extension of Barwise and Cooper's analysis. I take a collective reading to indicate that the determiner is non-quantificational; it functions as a one-place operator and I think the type should be < , > or , dependent on syntactic position). A distributive reading is obtained when the

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

226

determiner is quantification ai, in which case it functions as a twoplace relation. So, English both is necessarily quantificational; its Dutch counterpart beide 'both', however, can get a non-relational reading. In Hoeksema (1984), it is shown that this determiner can function as a one-place operator that yields a collective reading if it is in an embedded position in a sentence: (223)

Het verschil tussen beide voorstellen is groot [Dutch] the difference between both proposals is large

Hoeksema acknowledges that a collective reading is not always available for beide; in (224) only a distributive reading arises: (224)

Beide vrouwen tilden de steen op both women lifted the stone

[Dutch]

But in (224), the subject is in standard subject posItion and this will always lead to a strong, quantificational reading in Dutch. To get a weak reading, we would need an existential sentence, but beide is filtered out from existential sentences as it is a strong determiner. Topicalizing a constituent other than the subject will allow a subject containing beide to stay in VP-internal subject position, where it can get a weak, collective reading again, as is illustrated in (225) (also adapted from Hoeksema): (225)

Eindelijk werden beide vrouwen het eens at last reached both women an agreement

[Dutch/

Accordingly, beide can occur in the embedded position of a setpartitive: (226)

een van beide taalkundigen one of both linguists

[Dutch]

Before jumping to the conclusion that only determiners on their non-relational readings can occur in the embedded position of setpartitives, I would like to discuss some of Ladusaw's examples, which contain a weak determiner in embedded position:

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

(227) (228)

227

That book could belong to one of three people John was one of several students who arrived late

The cardinal in (227) seems to get a non-relational, collective reading, indeed. Ladusaw notes that in (227), three people seems to refer to a contextually given set; that is, (227) invites a continuation like namely, Jane, Jackie, or Carol. In (228) it is not so obvious that the embedded determiner gets a non-relational interpretation. Now, let us suppose that an embedded determiner in a partitive can denote a relation between two sets. Given this, I claim that, syntactically, two arguments must be available that denote these sets. I think that in (228) the embedded determiner several denotes a binary relation indeed, and that its arguments are provided by the noun and the relative clause. This explains why the sentence becomes ill-formed if the relative clause is omitted in (228): (229) ? *John was one of several students Something similar can be observed in (230): (230)

a. b. c. d.

?*

one of some linguists one of some linguists that have a cat one of some visiting linguists one of some linguists that are drinking whiskey

claim that if some gets a relational reading, then it syntactically needs two arguments, although I am well aware that this claim is not uncontroversial. In (230a) only one argument is available, hence the construction is ill-formed, whereas in (230b-d) the necessary second arguments. are provided by the modifying phrases. So, some in (230b) denotes a relation between the set of linguists and the set of cat-owners, in such a way that the intersection of the two sets should not be empty. The intersection of two sets is of course a set itself, and this set will serve as the first argument of the higher determiner (after it has been made accessible by partitive of). In recent work, Abbott (1990) argues that differences in well-formedness such as between (230a) and

228

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

(230b-d) are due to a pragmatic principle, but I doubt whether a pragmatic principle can be sharp enough to explain the rather clear judgements here. 29 Not all determiners that denote binary relations can occur in the embedded position of a set-partitive. In fact, only symmetric or intersective determiners give a well-formed result. Intersective determiners are known for the fact that they are only concerned with the intersection of the two sets A and B provided by their arguments. In a relational perspective and under the assumption of some basic constraints, determiners can all be defined in terms of the two numbers IA-B I and IAnB I (cf. Westerstahl 1984, Zwarts 1983). In case of finite universes, it follows that for every determiner there is a corresponding relation between two natural numbers given by IA-B I and IAnB I. As intersective determiners are merely concerned with the latter number, it can be argued that although they syntactically take two arguments, the corresponding relation is in fact a one-place relation. A related property of intersective determiners is that they are existential (cf. Keenan 1987), which means that some women drink whiskey will be true if and only if some women who drink whiskey exist is true. In this way a proposition such as some women drink whiskey is semantically related to the NP some women who drink whiskey. Another property that symmetric determiners take advantage of, is that they are symmetrical with respect to their two arguments, which may be thought of as conjoined. This means that it makes no difference whether A is taken as the first argument or B (as IAnBI = IBnA!). This might be of importance in partitives, because here symmetric determiners have to select both their arguments NP-internally. These characteristics of symmetric determiners are not shared by other binary determiners. Most, for instance, relates its two argument sets in such a way that both the intersection and the difference matter. In (231) there is nNo set of entities that can function as the first argument of one available in any straightforward way, hence the ill-formedness of the construction: (231) * one of most linguists that are drinking whiskey

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

229

I will not elaborate any further upon the question of why of all relational determiners, only the symmetric ones are allowed in the embedded position of set-partitives, but I think the characteristics of this class of determiners as set forth above, supply the key to the answer to this question. 3o To sum up, I distinguish two types of relational (quantificational) determiners, the ones that take entities and the ones that take sets as arguments. Not all potentially entity-denoting or set-denoting NPs are directly accessible to these determiners, however. If not, then the function of partitive of is to make these entities or sets accessible. In this way we obtain two types of partitives, to wit entity-partitives and set-partitives. Hence, we no longer need a separately defined partitive constraint (however, see De Hoop, 1995, for a slightly different conclusion). The observations which motivated this constraint can all be attributed to the function of partitive of together with the semantic properties of classes of determiners. Whether the reader accepts the idea that also relational (albeit only symmetric ones) determiners may occupy the embedded position within a partitive or not, the main result of this section is that under this analysis of partitives, we can maintain that an NP such as many of the cats can be cardinal according to Keenan's definition in (212) of the previous subsection, which provides us with a possible characterization of the semantic filter that allows partitives but blocks strong determiners in existential sentences in Dutch.

3.6 Summary In this section, the weak-strong effects in several linguistic environments have been divided into those involving a weak-strong distinction with respect to type of NP (i.e. weak and strong readings) and those involving a weak-strong distinction based on semantic properties of determiners. It has become clear that different semantic properties each lead to a particular classification of determiners and that a general weak-strong distinction is far too rough to account for all the subtle differences in determiner interpretations in several linguistic contexts.

230

4.

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Conclusion

In this chapter, the correlation between Case configuration and NP interpretation has been demonstrated in further detail and has proven its use in the analysis of phenomena such as scrambling and existential constructions. Syntactic and semantic filters and principles can simultaneously affect sentence structure and possible NP interpretations. Object scrambling in Dutch appears to be restricted by two factors at least. Firstly, only NPs that get strong Case can scramble and secondly, an object is only allowed to scramble in the presence of a contrastive predicate. These two factors are related by means of one principle, the principle of contrastiveness, according to which any quantificational NP (in the sense as discussed in chapter 2) needs a contrastive predicate. The hypothesis concerning the relation between Case configuration and NP interpretation can easily be extended to subject NPs. Under the assumption that the D-structure subject position is VP-external in English, but VP-internal in Dutch, the differences between possible subject interpretations in Dutch and English automatically follow. The filter that blocks strong determiners (but not weak ones on a strong reading) in Dutch existential sentences is argued to be purely semantic in character. It appears that weak-strong effects in different linguistic environments, that are often all analyzed in terms of one and the same weak-strong distinction, must in fact be attributed to a number of different syntactic and semantic filters.

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231

NOTES 1. Sections 1.2-1.3 contain some material that is developed in collaboration with Wim Kosmeijer (cf. De Hoop and Kosmeijer 1991), whereas part of §1.4 was developed in collaboration with Henriette de Swart (cf. De Hoop and De Swart 1989, 1990). The notion contrastiveness of the predicate (cf. § 1.5) was initially introduced in De Hoop and De Swart (1989). 2. Jan Koster pointed out to me on several occasions that scrambling weak NPs on their weak reading is not altogether prohibited; if it is allowed, specific intonational patterns are often involved. See also Neeleman (1991) on word orders that are ungrammatical in neutral contexts, but possible if focus obviously plays a role. This might be related to the difference between Aand A-bar positions (see §1.3), which was also suggested in De Hoop and Kosmeijer (1995). 3.

Thanks to Veena Dwivedi for pointing this out to me.

ko-marking on objects implies that the object gets a specific, referential reading.

4.

5. Compare Zwart (1991a) for a different view according to which INFL is to the left of VP in Dutch. 6. This is because sister is a relational noun, unlike, for instance, book. Landman and Partee (p.c.) have proposed a semantic analysis according to which a sentence such as Jane has every sister comes out as ill-formed because it expresses a tautology, paraphrasable as "for all y, if y is a sister of Jane, then y exists". Tautologies do not generally lead to ill-formedness, however, and Landman and Partee's approach highly depends on the semantic analysis of have. I think the principle of contrastiveness is capable of accounting for the facts in a more principled way. 7.

See for a different analysis Reinhart (1995).

8. I will discuss the characterization distinction in more detail in section 3.

of the

weak-strong

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Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

9. The subject in (97) can get a third type of possible reading, which is obtained when the noun is stressed: dat enkele EENHOORNS in dit bos wonen. I come back to this type of reading in a moment. 10. See also Abraham (1988) on this type of reading in German and its relation to contrastive focus and specificity. 11. I thank Jan-Wouter Zwart for helpful discussion with respect to this kind of examples. At one point he suggested that in the examples under consideration er 'there' is dropped and [Spec, IP] is empty (the subject is still in VP-internal position and has not moved to [Spec, IP]). This might explain the particular characteristics of the type of reading that arises (existential but with a special focus effect). 12. There are exceptions on the requirement that [Spec, IP] be filled in Dutch, see e.g. Koster 1987, chapter 5. 13. Evidently, if [Spec, IP] is the D-structure subject position in English, then we might also argue that [Spec, IP] is the position in English to which the external El-role is assigned. 14. out has can

Although I assume that there has been no PP-extraposition of the standard subject position, it should be noted that the PP been extraposed out of its VP-internal position in (117b); it also stay in that position: De meeste reviews zijn al over dit boek verschenen (i) [Dutch] most reviews have already about this book appeared

15. Note that in (120) the strong Case licensed subject is neither in the VP-internal D-structure subject position, nor in [Spec, IP], since the latter is occupied by expletive er. 16. Both Comorovski and Hoeksema discuss English examples. Since partitives in English existential sentences are at best marginal or exceptional, I will use Dutch examples in order to clarify their point. 17. This could be viewed as evidence for the idea that we can apply the weak/strong distinction to PPs, too. Weak PPs which are interpreted as part of the predicate, cannot scramble to postverbal

Scrambling, Subjects, Weak-Strong

position, whereas strong PPs which independent arguments can.

233 can

function

as

real,

18. As a matter of fact, Diesing is well aware of these Dutch facts, which were discussed in De Hoop (1990a,b), but she claims that er 'there' plus partitive is a "main clause phenomenon" only. It will be evident from the example in (170) that this cannot possibly be right. Some more examples that show that we are not dealing with a main clause phenomenon here, are given below. (i) Ik heb gehoord dat er twee van de vijf vliegtuigen neergehaald zijn 1 have heard that there two of the five aircrafts brought down are "I heard that (there) two of the five aircrafts have been brought down" (ii) En gisteren werd bekend dat er voorlopig slechts een van de twee beoogde Nederlandse Hawk-squadrons naar Turkije kan worden gestuurd (De Volkskrant, February 1, 1991) and yesterday became known that there for the time being only one of the two intended Dutch Hawksquadrons to Turkey can be sent "And yesterday it was announced that (there) for the time being only one of the two intended Dutch Hawksquadrons can be sent to Turkey" 19. A paraphrase such as When there is a book about fossil fishes from Solnhofen, Paul usually destroys it is possible for (173), but not for (171), however. 20. But see De Hoop and Sola (to appear) for a different analysis. 21. Part of this research was initially done in collaboration with Mark Kas (cf. De Hoop and Kas 1989). A more elaborate semantic analysis of Dutch sommige is also found in De Hoop (1994). 22. Note that there are also determiners which although they do not respect Quantity can occur in contexts as (206), so that Quantity cannot be the only factor that plays a role in the ungrammaticality of (206):

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234

(i)

Toen deze jaren verstreken waren, ... "After these years had gone by, ... "

23. A problem seems to be constituted by a class of complex determiners which are existential, but not cardinal, according to Keenan, e.g. more... than .... Beghelli (1992) argued that most of these determiners are in fact intersective and cardinal (maybe an exception has to be made for the proportional ones), which would solve the problem. Also, the missing quantifiers analysis of Hendriks (1992) appears to be compatible with the fact that these comparative constructions can occur in existential sentences. 24. of them is not interpreted referentially here; them is kinddenoting, like in as for cats, I've got three of them. 25. De meeste 'most' can occur in this sentence, but not on the reading which would express that I have most (i.e. more than half) of them, for example the cats, but on a reading in which of all people, I have most (cats). This non-logical de meeste appears not to be strong; as a matter of fact, we can get it in an existential sentence: (i) Er worden de meeste moorden bij volle maan gepleegd (ii) There are the most murders when the moon is full Certainly, de meeste in (i) does not mean 'more than half and the same holds for its English counterpart in (ii). But in English we get a different translation for this non-logical variant of de meeste, namely the most, instead of most. I thank the editors of Bach et al (1994) for pointing this out to me.

26. According to L0nning, elements in the algebra are denoted by homogeneous predicates such as boiled, mass nouns such as water, and definite mass noun descriptions such as the cheese that disappeared. Mass noun phrases and inhomogeneous predicates are expressions which are one level higher, they denote subsets of the algebra. The sentence Some water boiled will be true if the element denoted by boiled is a member of the set denoted by some water, or, equivalently, thinking of the elements of the algebra as the quantities (or portions of matter) in the world, such that water refers to the totality of the world's water and boiled to the totality of what boiled at the time interval involved, some water boiled is

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235

true if and only if the quantity which is the product of these quantities is different from the empty quantity (thus, the interpretation of some is Ilsomell(Q')={~IQ'x~"'O} within L0nning's model, which resembles its interpretation within a generalized quantifier approach to count terms). 27. One can argue that expressions such as a number (that combines with count nouns) and a quarter (that combines with definite mass noun descriptions as well as with other entitydenoting expressions) do not have direct access to sets or elements that are denoted by bare nouns; they need partitive of in any case, compare *a number cats with a number of cats/a number of the cats and *a quarter cheese with a quarter of the cheese/a quarter of the population. 28. In my judgement, one of Jane and Jackie is ill-formed (its Dutch counterpart een van Jane and Jackie certainly is). People who judge this construction grammatical probably get the reading given by one out of Jane and Jackie (in Dutch een uit Jane and Jackie); this construction has different properties, however (in Hungarian, these two types of readings are syntactically separate, as was pointed out to me by Anna Szaboksi), hence should be distinguished from real partitives. The difference in well-formedness between one of the linguists and *one of Jane and Jackie seems to be a problem for almost all accounts of partitives, both for the ones in which the embedded NP must denote a non-empty generator set (Barwise and Cooper 1981) and for those in which the embedded NP must denote an entity (either group level or individual level) (cf. Ladusaw 1982, Hoeksema 1988). Note that half of Jane and Jackie does not refer to Jane or Jackie. If we consider Jane and Jackie to denote a composed entity, then half of it can be any half. This might become more clear in the following discourse: One year ago Jane and Jackie disappeared. Nobody ever heard from them again, but recently, half of Jane and Jackie was found back. 29. According to Barbara Partee (p.c.), the following example supports Abbott's approach, whereas it is problematic for mine: (i) a.?* those of the students/you b. those of the students/you who have a cat

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Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Although the example in (i) looks similar to the one in (230), I think there is an important difference, in that the modifying phrase in (230) restricts the set of linguists (and as such can function as a second argument for the embedded determiner some), whereas in (i) it restricts the set of individuals denoted by those (of the students) and does not modify the students as it does in for instance one of the students who have a cat. 30. The controversial claim, as put forward in this section, that adjectives and other modifying phrases can sometimes function as independent arguments with respect to certain semantic functors, gets some support from the study of a particular Dutch construction, the van die 'of those'-NP, which is discussed in De Hoop, Vanden Wyngaerd, and Zwart (1990).

Chapter 4

Conclusion

One of the most fundamental questions in the matter of characterizing the system of natural language concerns the relation between syntactic and semantic structure. The object of this study has been to address this question by examining the interaction between syntactic and semantic principles with respect to argument noun phrases, more specifically the relation between the Case of an NP and its quantificational character. This study is therefore situated within two frameworks, generative grammar on the one hand, and model-theoretic semantics on the other. There are several languages in which a relation can be observed between two types of objective Case and different interpretations for object NPs. The question arises how the relation between Case and interpretation should be characterized. In principle, the interpretion of an NP seems to be a matter of semantics, more specifically of the semantic properties of the determiner, whereas Case is viewed as a syntactic reflection of functor-argument structure. In chapter 1 the semantic status of noun phrases (NPs) in general and of weak or indefinite NPs in particular was examined. There is an ongoing discussion about the nature of indefinites, but apart from whether indefinites should be taken to denote variables or quantifiers, an explanation has to be found for the different readings of indefinite NPs, or, more generally, of weak NPs. It has been argued that the notion strong reading can be used to unify the

237

238

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

referential or specific reading of weak NPs, the partitive reading of cardinals, the generic reading of indefinites, and the generic collective reading of cardinals. Environments where syntactic factors trigger strong readings on weak NPs provide support for the use of a general, comprehensive term. Individual level predicates trigger strong readings on their subjects, and scrambling triggers strong readings on NPs in Dutch. It is not necessarily the case that the explanations for these facts should be syntactic in nature, but it is obvious that certain contexts trigger strong readings. The reason we call these readings strong is that they pattern with strong NPs in their syntactic behaviour. It is claimed that strong and weak readings do not result from a lexical ambiguity in weak NPs, but arise as the result of syntactic factors, although the ambiguity itself is still semantic. In chapter 2 it is argued that strong readings of weak NPs must be attributed to the type of an NP, to wit the type of a generalized quantifier < ,t>. A hypothesis is developed concerning the relation between strong and weak readings of NPs on the one hand and type of Case assignment on the other. I argue in favour of the existence of two types of structural Case, strong structural Case, licensed at S-structure, and weak structural Case, licensed at D-structure. Weak Case is a structural default Case licensed at D-structure in a certain configuration, hence should be distinguished from lexical or oblique Case that is related to a fixed thematic role. Examples of this type of Case are partitive objective Case in Finnish, abstract objective Case in Turkish, and accusative Case in Inuit. Strong structural Case is different from weak Case in that it is licensed at S-structure. It is shown that NPs that bear weak Case are not allowed to scramble out of their original Dstructure position. According to the hypothesis that links these two types of Case to different interpretations, an object is interpreted as a generalized quantifier if and only if it bears strong Case. Under the assumption that an activity verb is characterized as telic or atelic in the lexicon, it can be argued that the object of an atelic activity verb must be characterized as a predicate modifier (type < , », irrespective of whether its determiner is strong or weak. In some languages, such an object can be realized as an NP that bears weak Case, but another possibility is that it is

Conclusion

239

realized in the form of a PP. If the activity verb is telic or if the verb can be argued to be really transitive, weak Case is licensed on an NP of type e at D-structure, giving rise to a weak, existential reading. Strong S-structure Case can be viewed as a type-shifting operator that shifts the type of an NP from e to < < e, t >, t >, which results in a strong reading. This implies that objects that have a strong reading are interpreted as generalized quantifiers. Some strong, quantificational NPs (such as every N) can never be of type e, yet can bear weak Case in certain languages, in which case they have the type of a predicate modifier; in other languages, they can only be realized as PPs when they function as a predicate modifier. Other strong NPs that syntactically have to be characterized as true objects, can function as part of the predicate in specific environments, for instance in expressions such as do the dishes. If object NPs on their weak reading have to be interpreted as part of a one-place predicate, then the phenomenon of object incorporation can be considered the ultimate morphological realization of this interpretation, even in case of strong NPs. Independent of whether incorporation should be viewed as a morphological or a syntactic phenomenon, it can be maintained that the incorporated NP cannot have strong Case. Another main claim is that the relation between syntax and semantics should not be analyzed as a strict mapping from syntactic structure onto semantic representation. Or, if it is analyzed as a mapping, then it cannot be a mapping that takes only structural positions into account; it has to involve features such as type of Case and focus. The fact that individual level predicates only allow strong readings on their subjects is accounted for semantically by assuming that there is a difference in argument structure between stage and individual level predicates. That scrambling only allows strong readings on the scrambled object is attributed to the syntactic difference between weak and strong Case. In chapter 3, the theory is further extended and tested by applying it to several linguistic environments. The constructions under discussion are sensitive to restrictions which are either syntactic or semantic in nature. It is shown that the properties of the these constructions can be satisfactorily accounted for by paying due attention to both types of restrictions.

240

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

An analysis is proposed for the phenomenon of objectscrambling in Dutch. In Dutch only NPs on a strong reading, that is NPs that bear strong Case, can be scrambled. Scrambling of NPs on a weak reading leads to ungrammaticality. The correlation between scrambling and a strong reading is attributed to the type of Case that is licensed at different structural positions at different levels of representation. Under the assumption that scrambling is an instance of A-movement, several explanations can be found for the fact that weak NPs cannot scramble, although they can topicalize. A second factor that plays a role in whether an object can scramble or not is contrastiveness of the predicate: an object can only scramble if the predicate is contrastive. The two restrictions on object scrambling are combined and generalized to all NPs in the semantic Principle of Contrastiveness: For all NPs Q of type < ,t> and predicates P: Q(P) is only appropriate if Ilpll E C & ICI~. Lack of a contrastive predicate blocks a generalized quantifier reading of an NP. The principle can account for several other environments in which a distinction between weak and strong readings applies. The hypothesis concerning the relation between Case and interpretation is extended to subjects in order to account for the differences in possible subject interpretations in standard as well as VP-internal position in English and Dutch. In Dutch, weak NPs in standard subject position can only get a strong reading, whereas in English, they can have either a weak or a strong reading. In the embedded position in existential sentences, however, weak subjects in English can only get a weak reading, whereas in Dutch both a weak and a strong reading can be obtained. This is explained within the theory developed in this book, under the assumption that in English, the standard subject position corresponds to the Dstructure subject position, whereas in Dutch the D-structure subject position is VP-internal. In this way, it follows that in English both weak and strong nominative Case can be licensed in the standard subject position, but that in Dutch only strong nominative Case can be licensed in the standard subject position, whereas both strong and weak nominative Case can be licensed in VP-internal position. In English existential sentences, only weak objective Case can be licensed in the VP-internal position, which explains why in English only ergatives are allowed in these constructions, whereas in Dutch all verbs can occur in existential

Conclusion

241

sentences. This theory also successfully explains another context in which a weak-strong effect plays a role, to wit PP-extraposition in English and Dutch. Environments with regard to which weak and strong NPs behave differently can be studied either from a semantic perspective or from a syntactic point of view, but one principle only, be it syntactic or semantic, is incapable of accounting for all phenomena attributed to the weak-strong distinction. The fact that individual level predicates trigger strong readings on their subjects can be attributed to a difference in argument structure between stage level and individual level predicates, but the possible weak and strong readings of objects and subjects in certain structural positions is due to a theory that explains which type of structural Case can be licensed in which positions; the principle of contrastiveness explains the fact that NPs on a strong reading are excluded from environments in which no contrastive predicate is available. Furthermore, a semantic filter blocks non-cardinal determiners in existential sentences, whereas other semantic filters are sensitive to other semantic properties that divide determiners into certain subclasses. Although this study is by no means the final answer to the question of how semantics relates to syntax, I would like to finish with some concluding remarks concerning this relation. The hypothesis defended in this study about the relation between syntactic Case and semantic type might look challenging at first sight with respect to a strict mapping procedure that maps syntactic structure onto semantic representation, but a richer version of such a mapping procedure that includes syntactic information such as type of Case and focus can presumably deal with such a hypothesis. The thesis that syntax is autonomous (cf. Chomsky 1981, Koster 1987) is not per se incompatible with the principle of compositionality (cf. Montague 1974), that states that the meaning of an expression is a function of the meanings of its parts and of the way they are syntactically combined, as long as a weaker version of this principle is assumed (see also Partee 1984b). I would like to view the relation between syntax and semantics as a strong rather than as an absolute correlation, leaving parts of them unaffected by each other as a number of relatively independent subsystems of principles. Part of syntax is

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autonomous and so is part of semantics. The semantics of quantification, for instance, always involves tripartite structures but these structures do not seem to be a simple function of syntactic structure. The way syntactic structure is related to semantic representation can then be formalized as an enriched mapping procedure together with a number of syntactic and semantic filters that rule out ill-formed sentences.

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Index A-bar movement ......... 148, 194 A-chains ............... 153, 176 A-movement . 144, 147, 148, 150, 151, 175,240 A-positions ................. 148 A-quantification .............. 165 Abbott ..................... 228 Absorption ................. 78 Accommodation . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24 Accusative hypothesis. . . . . . . . .. 78 Activity verbs. . . . . . . .. 97, 100, 114 Adjacency .................. 83 Affectedness ................ 100 Alternative semantics .......... 172 Anaphora .................. 153 Andrews ................... 91 Antipassive ......... 74, 79, 82, 90 construction ........... 72, 78 impersonal . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 79 Argument linking ............. 155 Asymmetric readings 22, 24, 26, 33, 163 Atelic . . . . . . .. 97, 107, 114, 134, 238 Baker .................. 11, 116 Bare plurals. 49, 89, 95, 100, 120, 125, 128, 132, 146, 179, 182, 195, 196, 198, 206 Barwise " 4-6,8, 13-18,21,44,46,68, 102, 215, 220, 226 Bauerle .................... 22 Belletti .. 57, 63, 66-70, 75, 77, 80, 83, 87, 88, 90, 148, 184 Bennis .................. 85, 148 Benthem, Van ............. 7,219 Bennan .................... 26 Besten, Den ....... 71,189, 190, 192 Bittner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 73, 74, 79 Bok-Bennema .... 78-80, 82, 90, 145 Boolean algebra .............. 223 Bresnan .................... 79 Burzio .................. 79, 191

255

Burzio's Generalization ........ 79 C-set ........... 199, 200, 213, 214 Cardinal determiners ...... 68, 220, 222 readings ........... 44-46, 222 Cardinality . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 205, 222 Cardinals ................... 238 Carlson ................. 49, 120 L-ase . 57, 121, 128, 131, 143, 144, 176, 237, 238 ablative ................ 77 ablative partitive ......... 76 absorption .............. 60 abstract ................ 238 adjacency ............. 80, 91 assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 59 default. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 75 ergative ................ 73 genitive ................ 62 inherent ... 57, 61, 66, 69-72, 75, 76,78,86,88,90,91, 148 inheritance . . . . .. 63, 64, 66, 88 instrumental . . . . . . . . . .. 72-74 lexical .... 57, 76, 77, 80, 91, 93, 134,238 morphological ........ 59, 101 objective ............... 57 oblique .. 57, 59, 76, 80, 93, 134, 153,238 partitive . 66-70, 72-74, 76-78, 80, 87, 88, 90, 94, 99, 115, 148, 238 quirky ................. 91 strong . 58, 69, 70, 80, 82, 87, 92, 94, 96, 102, 107, 109, 131-134, 145-147, 149, 152, 174,184-186, 188,231,238 structural .. 57, 61, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 86, 90, 93, 134, 153, 175, 238 structural default ...... 75, 134

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syntactic ........ 76, 80, 92, 241 weak .. 58, 69, 70, 75-83, 86, 89, 92-94, 96, 100, 102, 107-109, 112, 113, 134, 143, 145, 152, 153, 175, 176, 184-186, 188 weak structural. . . . . . . . . .. 77 Case Filter ........ 59, 61, 76, 83, 93 Case-licensing ............... 147 Chains ............... 61, 64, 153 Chierchia ..... 21, 23, 30, 32, 34, 161, 164, 165 Chomsky ... 58,59, 61-64, 69, 76, 86, 201,241 Collective. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 226-228 Collective readings ......... 50, 113 Comorovski .......... 175, 198, 220 Conservativity ... 8, 9, 34, 44, 46, 210 Contrast set ................. 172 Cooper . 4, 6, 8, 13-18,44,46, 68, 102, 215, 220, 226 Creation, verbs of ........ 207, 208 D-structure ............... 57, 60 Davidson ................... 129 Davidsonian ................. 153 Davidsonian argument .. 129, 154-156 Definite descriptions ............. 103 NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18, 64, 67 readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 67 Definiteness . . . . . . . .. 62, 67, 68, 99 Definiteness Effect. 64, 70, 72, 87, 176 Definiteness restriction 14, 17, 63-68, 87,96, 116, 177-179,203 Definites ................... 113 Destruction, verbs of .......... 208 Determiners. . . . . . . . . . .. 10, 12, 14 cardinal ......... 68, 220, 222 definite ................ 226 dynamic .............. 31,34 existential .............. 16 indefinite . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18 intersective .............. 229 mass .................. 223 monotone .............. 10 monotone decreasing . . . . .. 10 n-place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 16 non-monotone .. . . . . . . . .. 10 presuppositional ...... 215, 220

quantificational 209, 212, 223, 224 relational ............... 230 strong . 14, 18, 68, 144, 177, 187, 204, 205, 215, 216, 223, 227 symmetric .......... 229, 230 universal ........... 205, 223 weak 14, 16, 18,44,45, 144, 177, 204, 205, 220, 227 Diesing .48-50, 119, 120, 122-127, 129, 131, 133, 144, 153, 156, 158, 162, 170, 186, 189, 190, 192-195, 205, 206, 208, 209 Discourse Representation Theory .. 4, 19, 22, 23, 25 Distributive ............. 226, 227 Does, Van der . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 35 Donkey-sentences .. 19, 26, 27, 33, 35 DRT ............... 120, 128, 156 Dynamic Intensional Logic. . . . .. 31 Dynamic Montague Grammar ... 31 Dynamic Type Theory ......... 30 E-type pronouns ........ 25, 28, 35 Egli ....................... 22 En~ ..................... 51,93 Ergative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82 verbs .................. 66 Ergative languages . . . . . . . . . . .. 72 Ergatives ... 87, 96, 184, 185, 191,241 Evans ..................... 25 Exceptional Case Marking .... 78, 88 Existential closure ..... 20, 26, 49, 120, 123, 156-158 construction . . . . . . . . . . . .. 65 determiners ............. 16 indefinites .............. 207 quantification. . . . . . . . . . .. 24 quantifiers ...... 18, 19, 25, 35 readings ... 20, 35, 45, 48-50, 89, 93, 96, 113, 120, 121, 122-127, 130, 153, 169, 177, 178, 181, 182, 183, 186, 193, 196, 201, 202, 207, 239 sentences .. 14, 16-18, 37, 38, 62, 65, 66, 68, 70, 135, 143, 144, 175-178, 181, 182, 184, 187, 188, 189, 198, 199,201, 203-205, 214, 215, 216, 220,

Index 222, 227, 231, 241 Existentiality ............. 15, 215 Expletives .... 63, 126, 182, 185, 193, 198,201 Extension. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 8, 9 Extraction .... 85, 189, 190, 192, 193, 197, 198 Extraposition ..... 176, 186, 188, 199, 201, 241 from NP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Focus association ............. 212 Fodor ................... 36-40 Fortescue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 72 Fukui ...................... 119 Geach rule .................. 112 Generalized quantifiers .. 4, 6, 18, 21, 102, 105, 128, 130, 133, 134, 168, 174, 180, 203, 238 Generative grammar ....... 57, 237 Generic cardinals . . . . . . . . . . . .. 50 Generic readings ..... 35, 49, 50, 89, 120-123, 128, 132, 146, 169, 238 Gerstner ................... 49 Groenendijk ............... 21, 31 Gueron .................... 186 Heim ... 19,20,23-30,32,34,35, 123 Hoeksema .. 46, 47, 50, 198, 226, 227 Hoekstra ................ 85, 148 Hoekstra, E. ................ 86 Hoekstra, 1.................. 153 Hollebrandse ................ 200 Hoop, De .... 67, 152, 159, 161, 175 Hopper ................. 96, 116 Hout, Van ........... 97, 107, 114 Huettner's test ............ 47, 181 Incorporation . . . . . . . . . . .. 115-117 Indefinite determiners ............. 18 NPs . . . . . . . . . .. 4, 18, 64, 237 readings .............. 66, 67 Indefiniteness. . . . . . . . . .. 67, 68, 70 Indefinites ............. 19-21, 113 as variables ....... 19, 25, 123 existential .............. 207 generic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 207 presuppositional .......... 207 referential .............. 36 Intersection property .......... 44

257 Intersective determiners ........ 229 Intersectivity ................ 13 Involvedness ................ 100 Irresultative .. . . . . . . . . .. 73, 74, 95 Irresultativity ........... 67, 71, 94 lackendoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68, 226 lakohson ................... 75 Johnsen .................... 220 long, De .... 204, 205, 214, 215, 220 Kadmon ...... , 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29 Kamp .......... 19,23,24,36,123 Kanerva .................... 79 Karlsson ................... 67 Kayne ..................... 82 Keenan . 15-17,215,216,220,221,229 Klima ..................... 11 Koopman ................... 119 Kornfilt ......... 76-78, 80, 81, 145 Kosmeijer ........... 151, 152, 175 Koster .... 61, 63, 75, 83-86, 110, 241 Kratzer . 23,49,50, 119, 121, 129, 144, 153-170, 180, 181,206 Krifka .................. 49, 211 Ladusaw ....... 10, 11, 68, 225-228 Left Dislocation ............ 37, 75 Levin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 91 Lewis ........... 19,21,22,31,212 Lexical ambiguity. . . .. 4, 36,41,238 Lexicon ................. 58, 128 Light verbs ................. 200 Link ....................... 225 Lohner .................... 113 Logical Form ...... 58, 121, 158, 166 L0nning ............. 113, 223, 225 Mahajan ............... 147-150 Mapping .... 119,121,125,131,144, 239, 241 Mapping hypothesis .. , 119, 120, 123, 125-127, 129, 131, 133, 153, 156, 158, 162, 163, 166, 190 May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64, 121, 206 Meulen, Ter .............. 18, 204 Mey, De ................... 118 Milsark . 14,41,42,48,49,51,70,89, 113, 123, 127, 128, 177-180, 214, 220, 222 Mithun .................... 116 Model-theoretic semantics ...... 237

258

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation

Mohanan ................... 149 Moltmann .............. 147, 195 Monotone decreasing ............ 10, 12 increasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 12 Monotone decreasing . . . . . . . . .. 12 Monotonicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 10 Montague ....... 4, 6, 102, 104, 241 Mom ...................... Wl Neeleman .............. 148-150 Negative polarity ........... 11, 12 Nikanne .................... 76 Nominalizations . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 59 NPs as families of sets . . . . . . . . .. 6 as generalized quantifiers . 4, 102 cardinal ................ 146 definite ........ 14, 18, 64, 67 existential .............. 17 generic ................. 196 indefinite ..... 4, 14, 18, 64, 237 non-existential ........... 17 object ................. 57 partitive . . . . . . . . . . .. 208, 220 presuppositional .......... 208 quantificational 4, 107, 113, 204, 214, 231, 239 referential .......... 107, 113 strong .. 42, 64, 68, 94, 108, 110, 113-115, 117, 149, 175, 178, 186, 203, 206, 216 weak ... 4, 42, 50, 68, 73, 84, 85, 107, 108, lll, ll3, 123, 126, 149, 151, 153, 175, 186,203, 205, 206 Nuclear scope .. 20,24, 119-122, 126, 156-158, 163, 207, 212, 213, 214 Object NPs ................. 57 Object-scrambling ............ 51 Objects .................... 58 P-sets ...................... 172 Parasitic gaps. . . . . . . . . . .. 147, 148 Parsons .................... 28 Partee ... 21,44-47,50, 102-107, ll2, 133, 165, 166, 209-211, 226, 241 Partitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 95 ablative .............. 78, 81 Case 66-70, 72-74, 76-78, 80, 87,

88, 90, 94, 99, 115, 148, 238 NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 208, 220 of ............. 224, 228, 230 readings ... 41,45,47,48,51, 68, 93, 100, 110, Ill, 123, 124-127, 130, 132, 146, 153, 169, 175,177-183, 186,189, 199, 202, 204, 216, 220, 238 Partitive constraint ........ 226, 230 Partitives . 205, 206, 221-223, 229, 230 ablative ................ 76 entity- ............. 225, 230 set- ............... 225, 230 Partitivity ................... 219 Passives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 60 Pelletier .................. 21, 34 Phonological Form . . . . . . . . . . .. 58 Pinto ...................... 88 Plurality presupposition .... 161, 162 Postal ..................... 41 PP-extraposition . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 84 Predicate logic ............. 5, 101 Predicate restriction . . .. 42, 177, 178 Predicates O-place ................. 130 I-place ................. 130 alternative .............. 174 atelic ........... 98, 100, 107 bleached ............... 213 cardinality ........... 50, 123 contrastive ... 109-111, 132, 170, 173, 174,176, 199,201,202, 203, 213, 214, 231, 240 control ................. 121 empty ................. 213 individual level ... 42,47,49,51, 52, 89, 120-122, 124, 125, 127, 128-130, 132, 153-165, 167, 170,171, 177-181, 189, 190, 195, 197, 198, 238, 239, 241 non-contrastive ... Ill, 173-175, 199, 223 once-only ........ 160-162,208 raised .................. 201 raising ................. 121 resultative .............. 95 small clause ............. 201

259

Index

stage level .. 42, 45. 49, 120, 121, 124, 128, 130, 132, 153, 155, 156, 159-162, 165-167, 170, 171,177,180, 181, 190, 194-197,239,241 Presuppositionality . 205, 208, 209, 220 Principle C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64 Principle of Contrastiveness . 109, 111, 143, 145, 166, 174, 176, 177, 198, 199,201,203-205.213, 214, 223, 231, 240, 241 Proportion problem 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 32,53, 163 Proportional readings. . . . . 44, 45, 48 Quantification A( dverbial)- . . . . . . . .. 165, 166 D(eterminer)- ........... 165 unselective . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 24 Quantificational adverbs ................ 212 determiners .. 209, 212, 223, 224 NPs ...... 4,204,214,231,239 Quantifier unselective . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 20 Quantifier Raising .. 64, 170, 194,206 Quantifiers existential .......... 5, 18, 25 first-order ............... 5 strong ................. 206 universal .............. 5, 68 Quantity ........... 8, 10,219,221 Ramchand . . . . . . . . . .. 99, 113, 118 Referential readings ......... 35, 51 Reinhart ..... 27, 152, 153, 176, 186 Relative clauses .............. 22 Restrictive clause .... 20, 24, 119-122, 126, 156-158, 163, 165, 166, 206 Restrictor .............. 212-214 Resultativity ............... 67, 71 Reuland. .. 18, 44, 64-66, 81, 83, 126, 145, 151-153, 176, 181, 185, 192, 204 Revised Extraction Constraint ... 193 Reyle ...................... 24 R=ili ....

~I~I~I~I~2U

Rouveret ................... 59 Rullmann ................ 44, 181 Russell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19

S-structure ................ 57, 60 Sadock ..................... 72 Safir ............ 57, 62, 63, 65, 66 Sag ..................... 36-40 Schubert ................. 21, 34 Schuurman .................. 117 Scope islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 39 Scrambling .. 52, 92, 109-111, 115, 124, 130-132, 135, 143, 144, 146-152, 158, 163, 166, 167, 169, 170-173,175, 176, 188, 189, 193, 194, 197,203,213, 231, 238-240 Set theory ................... 6 Small Clauses. . . . . . . . .. 89, 90, 128 Speas ...................... 119 Specific readings ............. 51 Sportiche ................... 119 Stavi ...................... 15 Stokhof .................. 21, 31 Stowell ..................... 80 Strawson ................... 220 Strong Case . 80, 82, 87, 92, 94, 96, 102, 107, 109, 131, 132-134, 145-147, 149, 152, 174, 184, 185, 186, 188, 231, 238 determiners . 14, 18, 68, 144, 177, 187, 204, 205, 215, 216, 223, 227 NPs . 42,52, 64, 68, 94, 108, 110, 113-115, 117, 149, 175, 178, 186, 203, 206, 216 quantifiers .............. 206 readings ... 34,44,48,49,51,52, 57,68,71,73,74,84,89, 92, 94, 96, 100-102, 109, 111, 113, 114, 115, 125, 127, 128, 130-132, 144-146, 149, 152, 170,174, 176, 179-182, 185, 187, 188, 198, 199,201, 203-205, 213, 216, 227, 238 Strong readings ........ 41, 47, 143 of indefinites ....... 35, 36, 49 of weak NPs . . . . .. 4, 36, 48, 52 Stump ................. 195, 196 Subextraction ......... 156, 195, 198

260 Swart, De

Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation 49, 159, 161, 168, 211, 212, 225, 226

Symmetric determiners ......... 229, 230 predicates .............. 29 readings .. 22-24, 26, 44, 163-165 Symmetry ................ 13, 46 Szabolcsi ...... 95, 96, 115, 116, 213 Telic ......... 97, 98, 100, 114, 238 Telicity .................... 97 There-sentences .. 42, 63, 70, 88, 177, 178, 184, 185, 188, 198, 206 Theta Criterion ............ 60, 76 Theta Theory .............. 60, 76 Theta-assignment . . . . . . . . . . . .. 57 Theta-hierarchy .............. 175 Thijsse .............. , ...... 215 Thompson ............... 96, 116 Topicalization ........ 37, 153, 227 Torrego .................... 65 Transitivity ................. 96 Truth conditions ......... 4, 21, 24 Type-shifting . 102, 104-106, 108, 112, 114, 133, 134, 239 Un accusative hypothesis ...... 70, 87 Unaccusative verbs ....... 66,69,83 U naccusatives ......... 70, 87, 155 Unbalanced 0-chains ........ 64, 65 Unergative verbs ......... 143, 148 Unergatives ....... , ......... 192 Uniformity Condition. . . . . . . . .. 62 Universal Grammar . . . . . . . . . .. 58 Unselective binding ........... 20 Vacuous quantification .. 154, 158, 160 Viihiimiiki .................. 115 Vainikka ........... 75, 76, 80, 145 Vanden Wyngaerd ............ 147 Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19 Vergnaud ................. " 59 Verkuyl ................ 100, 205 Weak Case ... 75-83, 86, 89, 92-94, 96, 100, 102, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 134, 143, 145, 147, 152, 153, 175, 176, 184-186, 188 determiners .. 14, 16, 18, 44, 45, 144, 177,204,205,220,227

NPs . 4, 35, 36, 42, 50, 68, 73, 84, 85, 107, 108, 111, 113, 123, 126, 149, 151, 153, 175, 186, 203, 205, 206 readings ... 34,41,48,50,57, 68, 71, 74, 84, 92, 93, 96, 101, 110, 111, 113, 115, 128, 130, 143, 144, 145, 152, 170, 174, 176, 188,201,204,227 structural Case . . . . . . . . . .. 77 Weak-strong distinction .. 13, 18, 100, 143, 144, 174, 177, 203, 204, 220, 230, 231 Weather verbs ............... 130 Webelhuth .................. 148 Westerstahl .... 42,46, 210, 222, 229 When-clauses ......... 161, 162, 212 Wide scope readings .......... 36 Williams ................ 40, ISS Zwart .............. 75, 199, 201 Zwarts .... 7, 10, 12, 46, 214, 215, 229