Poverty -of-stimulus arguments have taken new ground recently, augmented by experimental findings from th e study of child language. In this paper, we briefly review two variants of the poverty-of-stimulus argument that have received empirical support from studies of child language; then we examine a third argument of this kind in more detail. The case under discussion involves the structural notion of c-command as it pertains to children’s interpretation of disjunction in the scope of negation.

It is widely believed that existential quantifiers can bring about the semantic effects of a scope which is wider than their actual syntactic scope (See Fodor & Sag (1982), Cresti (1995), Kratzer (1995), Reinhart (1995) and Winter (1995), among many others.) On the other hand, it is assumed that the syntactic scope of universal quantifiers can be determined unequivocally by the semantics. This paper shows that this second assumption is wrong; universal quantifiers can also bring about scope illusions, though in (...) a very specific environment. In particular, we argue that in the environment of generic tense, universal quantifiers can show the semantic effects of a scope which is wider than the one that is actually realized at LF. Our argument has four steps. First, we show that in generic contexts, universal quantifiers escape standard “scope-islands” (Section 1). Second, we show how the effects of wide scope in generic contexts can be achieved without syntactic wide scope (Section 2.1). Third, we show that this result is actually forced on us, once we take seriously certain independent issues concerning the interpretation of generic tense (Sections 2.2 - 2.4). Finally, the semantics of generic tense and, in particular, its interaction with focus, will yield some intricate new predictions, which, as we show, are borne out (Sections 3 - 5). (shrink)

Despite the renown of ‘On Denoting’, much criticism has ignored or misconstrued Russell's treatment of scope, particularly in intensional, but also in extensional contexts. This has been rectified by more recent commentators, yet it remains largely unnoticed that the examples Russell gives of scope distinctions are questionable or inconsistent with his own philosophy. Nevertheless, Russell is right: scope does matter in intensional contexts. In Principia Mathematica, Russell proves a metatheorem to the effect that the scope of a single occurrence of (...) a description in an extensional context does not matter, provided existence and uniqueness conditions are satisfied. But attempts to eliminate descriptions in more complicated cases may produce an analysis with more occurrences of descriptions than featured in the analysand. Taking alternation and negation to be primitive (as in the first edition of Principia), this can be resolved, although the proof is non-trivial. Taking the Sheffer stroke to be primitive (as proposed by Russell in the second edition), with bad choices of scope the analysis fails to terminate. (shrink)

In Fox and Lappin (2005a) we propose Property Theory with Curry Typing (PTCT) as a formal framework for the semantics of natural language. PTCT allows finegrained distinctions of meaning without recourse to modal notions like (im)possible worlds. It also supports a unified dynamic treatment of pronominal anaphora and VP ellipsis, as well as related phenomena such as gapping and pseudo-gapping.

This paper discusses the apparent scope ambiguities between definite descriptions and modal operators. I argue that we need the theory of presupposition to explain why these ambiguities are not always present, and that once that theory is in hand, Kripke’s modal argument loses much of its force.

Discusses the relationship between logical scope and grammar, and some problems about the scope of descriptions, definite and indefinite.

This paper presents and discusses a range of counterexamples to the common view that quantifiers cannot take scope over epistemic modals. Some of the counterexamples raise problems for ‘force modifier’ theories of epistemic modals. Some of the counterexamples raise problems for Robert Stalnaker’s theory of counterfactuals, according to which a special kind of epistemic modal must be able to scope over a whole counterfactual. Finally, some of the counterexamples suggest that David Lewis must countenance ‘would’ counterfactuals in which a covert (...) ‘would’ scopes over the whole consequent of the counterfactual, including an overt ‘might.’. (shrink)

§1. Introduction. By means of what semantic features is a proper name tied to its bearer? This is a puzzling question indeed: proper names — like “Aristotle” or “Paris” — are syntactically simple, and it therefore does not seem possible to reduce their meanings, by means of a principle of compositionality, to the meanings of more basic, and hence perhaps more tractable, linguistic elements.