Distributivity and Negation: The Syntax of Each and Every

Beghelli, Filippo; Stowell, Tim

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-5814-5_3

Cited by 377 publications

(216 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The second possibility is that quantifier specificity could be tied to substantive differences in the combinatorial properties of quantifiers. While scope ambiguity is a general property of quantification, some theorists have invoked distinct combinatorial features and mechanisms to explain both scopal and other semantic properties of EVERY, EACH and ALL (Beghelli & Stowell, 1997;Champollion, 2010;Steedman, 2012; see the General Discussion). Perhaps it is the differences between these meanings that are responsible for the specificity of the scopal priming effects.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there are many different analyses of the combinatorial semantics of number words (see, for example, Beghelli and Stowell, 1997;Heim and Kratzer, 1998;Steedman, 2012), within a given theory, different numbers always have identical combinatorial properties. Consistent with these theories, we adopt the assumption that the only differences between them are in the cardinality of the set they pick out.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantifier Raising or QR, Chomsky, 1976;May, 1977;Quantifying-in, Montague, 1972;Rodman, 1976), semantic (e.g. Cooper storage, Cooper, 1983;Keller, 1988;type-shifting of expressions, Hendriks, 1988; type-shifting of composition rules, Barker, 2002) or involve a more complex mapping at the syntaxsemantics interface (e.g., a lexicalized grammar where different quantifier words have different scopal mechanisms, Beghelli & Stowell, 1997;Steedman, 2012; See also Reinhart, 1997;Winter, 2001). …”

Section: Theoretical Approaches To Quantifier Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, splitting theories posit different scoping mechanisms for some or all different quantifiers (e.g. Beghelli and Stowell, 1997;Champollion, 2010;Fodor & Sag, 1982;Reinhart, 1997;Steedman, 2012;VanLehn, 1978;Winter, 2001 and many others).…”

Section: A Range Of Quantifier Scope Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even theories towards the splitting end, which posit semantic differences between quantifiers (e.g. Beghelli & Stowell, 1997), seek to explain which readings are allowed with which combinations of quantifiers, and not why some of the allowable readings are preferred to others. We find that all of the quantifiers we tested can take either wide or narrow scope relative to A and that even extremely dispreferred readings can become more available due to priming effects.…”

Section: Preferred Versus Possible Scope Readingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The logic in language: How all quantifiers are alike, but each quantifier is different

Feiman

Snedeker

2016

Cognitive Psychology

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Quantifier words like EACH, EVERY, ALL and THREE are among the most abstract words in language. Unlike nouns, verbs and adjectives, the meanings of quantifiers are not related to a referent out in the world. Rather, quantifiers specify what relationships hold between the sets of entities, events and properties denoted by other words. When two quantifiers are in the same clause, they create a systematic ambiguity. "Every kid climbed a tree" could mean that there was only one tree, climbed by all, or many different trees, one per climbing kid. In the present study, participants chose a picture to indicate their preferred reading of different ambiguous sentences -those containing EVERY, as well as the other three quantifiers. In Experiment 1, we found large systematic differences in preference, depending on the quantifier word. In Experiment 2, we then manipulated the choice of a particular reading of one sentence, and tested how this affected participants" reading preference on a subsequent target sentence. We found a priming effect for all quantifiers, but only when the prime and target sentences contained the same quantifier. For example, ALL-A sentences prime other ALL-A sentences, while EACH-A primes EACH-A, but sentences with EACH do not prime sentences with ALL or vice versa. In Experiment 3, we ask whether the lack of priming across quantifiers could be due to the two sentences sharing one fewer word. We find that changing the verb between the prime and target sentence does not reduce the priming effect. In Experiment 4, we discover one case where there is priming across quantifiers -when one number (e.g. THREE) is in the prime, and a different one (e.g. FOUR) is in the target. We discuss how these findings relate to linguistic theories of quantifier meaning and what they tell us about the division of labor between conceptual content and combinatorial semantics, as well as the mental representations of quantification and of the abstract logical structure of language.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%