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"Intermediate Scope" in (Mandarin) Chinese
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Kim, Ji-Yung |
| Copyright Year | 2011 |
| Abstract | This paper analyzes the "intermediate scope" readings for two classes of indefinites in Mandarin; these are construal s where an indefinite phrase, if analyzed on a par with quantifiers that exhibit scope properties, seems to "scope out" of the syntactic island within which it is contained, while seemingly taking scope under another scopal element. Mandarin Chinese offers two main classes of indefinites, indefinites headed by a common noun ("N-indefs") and wh-indefinites ("wh-indefs") . The two classes of indefinites differ from each other in their range of interpretations, in addition to their di stinct morphological shapes. The two classes of indefinites also differ in the conditions under which they allow an intermediate-scope reading. N-indefs, like the English indefinites, show an intermediate-scope reading only in the presence of a bound variable in their restriction, and thus provide strong support for an analysi s along the lines of Kratzer 1 998, which singles out variable binding as one important source of intermediate reading, rather than the scope-taking properties of the indefinites in question. Wh-indefs, on the other hand, can receive an intermediate scope construal independently of the presence of a bound variable; I argue that they should be analyzed as denoting sets of Hamblin-style alternatives, following Shimoyama 200 1 . Both of these analyses attribute the intermediate-scope reading of indefinites to something other than scope : in the case ofN-Indefs, it i s the binding of a variable in their restriction that simulated scope interaction. With wh-indefs, it is the alternatives they denote that allow for variation, thus causing the illusion of a scope interaction. The remainder of the introduction briefly reviews the common assumptions about quantifier scope, defines and presents diagnostics for the particular construal that is the focus of this paper, and introduces the two classes of Mandarin indefinites . §2 presents the conditions under which an intermediate scope reading is observed with the two classes of indefinites, each of which is analyzed in §3 and §4 respectively. §5 explores the possibility of unifying the separate analyses . |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/download/2885/2625 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
