User:Sapo02/sandbox/Scope (linguistics)

Scope in linguistics refers to the ability of an operator to affect the meaning of other expressions. Commonly accepted instances of an operator’s scope affecting the interpretation of an expression are quantifier—quantifier, quantifier—pronoun and quantifier—negative polarity item. The notion of scope in linguistics is closely related although distinct to that of scope in logic. An example the scope of a quantifier affecting the interpretation of another quantifier is

(1) every boy read a book

(1) can be interpreted as every boy reading one specific book, for example ... or that each boy read a different book.

The study of scope usually involves the assumption of a logical form, which postulates that there exists a mental representation of an expression that is derived solely from the surface structure.

Examples

Quantifier Quantifier

a. Every boy named a planet. `for every boy, there is a possibly different planet that he named'

b. I showed every boy a planet. `for every boy, there is a possibly different planet that I showed him'

c. That every boy left upset a teacher. `for every boy, there is a possibly different teacher who was upset by the fact that the boy left'

Q -- Pron

(3) a. Every boyi read hisi book.

b. I showed every boyi hisi book.

c.* That every boyi left upset hisi teacher.

Q-- NPI

a. Few boys read any of the books.

b. I showed few boys any of the books.

c.* That few boys came upset any of the teachers.

Determining Scope

Reinhart claims that

(9) If a rule assigns node A some kind of prominence over node B, B must be within the domain of A.

(10) "First branching node" c-command: The domain of a node A consists of all and only the nodes dominated by the (nonunary) branching node α which most immediately dominates A.

(11) A logical structure in which a quantifier binding a variable x has wide scope over a quantifier binding a (distinct) variable y is a possible interpretation for a given sentence S just in case in the surface structure of S the quantified expression (QE) corresponding to y is in the domain of the QE corresponding to x.

History

Montague

Montague's classical paper, The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English (1974) presents a grammar for a small fragment of English which, however, contains the logico-syntactic and semantic devices to handle practically any scope phenomenon.

May proposes that syntax does not end with producing the surface string. Instead, movement operations somewhat reminiscent of wh-movement continue to operate at an abstract level called Logical Form and append each phrase containing a quantifier to its domain. This rule is called Quantifier Raising (QR). For example, the two readings of Everyone loves someonehave the following LF structures

einhart's approach and the Montague/May approach represent two extremes. On the former, independently motivated phrase structure imposes an absolute limitation on scope options; on the latter, there is no such absolute limitation, because stucture may be built solely for the purposes of scope assignment. Nevertheless, syntactic considerations bear on scope on the latter approach as well.

The Scope Principle: If two operators govern each other, they can be interpreted in either scopal order.