Cyclicity and the scope of wh-phrases

This thesis argues that in a constituent question with a universal quantifier, syntactic reconstruction of the wh-phrase below the quantifier is the source of scope ambiguities. In particular, I argue, based on the interaction of PL-readings with binding conditions A and B, that syntactic reconstruction of the wh-phrase below the quantifier is necessary for the PL-readings or family-of-questions interpretation to be available. The thesis takes as a starting point the assumption, fundamental to the approaches of May (1985), Aoun and Li (1993), and Chierchia (1993), that wh-quantifier interaction is subject to a nesting-crossing asymmetry. Two things are shown in the first two chapters: 1) that the subject-object asymmetry is a relative phenomenon depending on the type of the quantifier used (whether one uses each vs every), and the type of the wh-phrase extracted (e.g. a which-phrase vs. a how many-phrase,) and 2), questions with quantifiers exemplifying nesting configurations are in fact unambiguous when reconstruction of the wh-phrase is blocked by binding theoretic principles. The data show that nesting is insufficient, whereas reconstruction is necessary condition for the availability of PL-readings. The proper treatment of wh-quantifier interaction is therefore one that treats the phenomenon in terms of reconstruction.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Aguero Bautista, Calixto

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Irene Heim.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8200
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/8200

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8200