Epistemic Containment Kaivon Fintel SabineIatridou Thisarticle concerns a newconstraint on theinteraction of quantifier phrasesand epistemic modals. It is argued that QPs cannotbind their tracesacross an epistemic modal, though it is shown that scoping mechanismsof adifferentnature are permitted to cross epistemic mod- als.The nature and source of thisconstraint are investigated. Keywords: quantification,modality, scope ambiguity, raising, clause structure,reconstruction 1Introduction Whena sentencecontains two quantificational items, it is quite often ambiguous between two logicalstructures that differ inthe relative scope of the two quantifiers. Until recently, it was widelyassumed that scope ambiguities are generally due to aninstanceof Move a calledQuantifier Raising(QR), whichwas assumedto operatequite freely (although it was knownto beconstrained byfinite clause boundaries). 1 Theassumption was, andis, that the investigation of QR will yieldan increased understanding of thelevel of syntacticrepresentation that interfaces with the interpretivecomponent. Alongthe way, consensus has been converging toward certain beliefs. Research has shown manyways in which scopal relations are much more rigid than previously suspected. 2 At the sametime, some scopal relations seem freer thanone might expect, especially if one looks at the propertiesof indefinite quantifiers (e.g., indefinites can take scope out of islands). In order to explainthe unexpectedly wide scope of indefinites, a currentlypopular approach is thatindefinite quantifiershave alternative ways of scopetaking, including choice functions, Skolem functions, andunselective binding by overt or covert operators. 3 Inother words, it is only an illusion that Thisarticle is arevisedversion of a manuscriptwe circulatedunder the title ‘ ‘Onthe Interaction of Modals,Quantifiers, and If-Clauses.’’ One partof thatancestral paperhas nowbecome astand-alonework entitled ‘ ‘If andWhen If-Clauses CanRestrict Quantifiers’’ (vonFintel and Iatridou 2002). Material fromthis article has beenpresented at colloquiaat theUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst, theUniversity of Arizona, and the University of Connecticut;at theGLOW conference inBraga, Portugal; and at Sinnund Bedeutung 7 inKonstanz, Germany. We thankthe audiences for their kindremarks andhelpful criticism. We thanktwo anonymous reviewers for LinguisticInquiry fortheir very useful comments. We alsothank Noam Chomsky,Bridget Copley, Danny Fox, Irene Heim, AngelikaKratzer, HowardLasnik, WinnieLechner, Lisa Matthewson,David Pesetsky, Norvin Richards, and Peter Svenoniusfor valuable input. Our names are listedin alphabetical order. 1 See amongothers Rodman 1976 and May 1977, 1985. 2 See amongothers Aoun and Li 1993,Szabolcsi 1997, Fox 2000, and Bruening 2001. Early work already contained muchevidence for strong constraints on quantifier scope (see, e.g.,Ioup 1975). 3 See Heim 1982for unselective binding. See Reinhart1997a,b, Winter 1997, and Kratzer 1998for choice-function indefinites. Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 34, Number 2,Spring 2003 173–198 q 2003 bythe Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology 173 174 KAIVONFINTELANDSABINEIATRIDOU QRasa movementis freer thanovert (A ¯ -)movement;when indefinites take higher scope than expected,it is not QR thatis responsible. On the other hand, the conclusion that QR ismore restrictedthan originally thought is takento bereal, as researchuncovers the existence of different sortsof interventioneffects and other constraints that block QR. Here, we addto this exploration a newobservation, a constrainton the scopal interaction ofquantifierswith epistemic modals 4 thatwe callthe EpistemicContainment Principle. 5 (1) TheEpistemic Containment Principle (ECP) Aquantifiercannot have scope over an epistemic modal. Thestructure of the article is as follows. In section 2, we presenttwo kinds of evidencefor theECP, one involving simple scope judgments and one involving binding (im)possibilities. In section3, we considerthe nature of the ECP. We concludethat it is avaliddescriptive generaliza- tion,but we donotdecide between two ways of integrating it into the grammar. In section 4, we discussreconstruction of A-moved quantifiers. In section 5, we brieflymention some ways of scopetaking that do not involve quantifier movement. 2Evidencefor the ECP 2.1Scope Judgments TheECP says that a quantifiercannot have scope over an epistemic modal —anunexpected claim, sincesentences containing quantifiers and modal or temporal elements routinely show clear scope ambiguities.Here isanexampleof a scopeambiguity between quantifiers and temporaloperators: (2) Mostof ourstudents will be professors in a few years. (3) Mostof ourstudents will be foreigners in a few years. Themost natural readings for thesetwo sentences involve different scopes: (2) saysthat most of our current studentswill in a few yearsbe professors ( mostof our students s will), while (3) 4 Very recently,we became aware ofa manuscriptby Drubig (2001), who independently claims thatquantifiers cannottake scopeover epistemic modals.As far as we can tell,Drubig gives no evidence to support his conclusion, however.On page 15, he cites Leech (1971:73)as havingobserved that quantifiers seem tobeunableto take scopeover epistemic modals.Drubig cites thisexample fromLeech: (i)Every clause mustcontain a finiteverb. He thencomments, ‘‘Thedeontic reading of [(i)] is compatiblewith wide and narrow quantifier scope, whereas the epistemic modalalways can onlyhave wide scope’ ’ (p.15). But of coursewith two expressions having universal force, every and must, scopeambiguities are exceedinglyhard to diagnose. That is whywe use at least onenonuniversal expressionin the quantifier scope examples discussedbelow. From Leech’ s originalpassage, itis clear thathe didnot infact anticipateour ECP but correctly observed that for principled reasons, no scope ambiguity is detectable in(i). 5 Thename ofthisconstraint was carefullychosen by oneof theauthors. The other author warned that he vaguely remembered fromsyntax courses hetook as agraduatestudent that there was anotherprinciple that went by theabbreviation ECP.But he was assured thatthat had been a temporaryaberration in thescience andthat the competing principle had nowdeservedly sunk into near oblivion. EPISTEMICCONTAINMENT 175 saysthat in afew yearsmost of our students at that time will be foreigners ( will s most of our students).6 Quantifiersalso appear to show scope ambiguities with deontic modal operators. (4) Mostof ourstudents must get outside funding — a.for thedepartment budget to work out. b.the others have already been given university fellowships. Thesentence in (4) isambiguous,an ambiguity brought out by the different continuations. (4a) bringsout the reading where mostof our students takesscope below the deontic modal: for the budgetto work, it needs to bethecase that most of thestudents get outside funding. (4b) makes salienta widescope reading for mostof our students, sincethe obligation is imposed on those specificstudents who have not already been given fellowships. Whatthe ECP is saying is that parallel facts do not obtain with epistemic modals. So, it predictsthat there is no scope ambiguity in (5), with only the order in (5a) beingpossible, not theone in (5b). (5) Mostof ourstudents must be home by now. a. must s mostof ourstudents b.*most of ourstudents s must We predictthat (5) onlyhas a readingin which the quantifier mostof our students has narrow scopeunder the epistemic modal must. Thismeans that in order for (5) tosatisfy the ECP, the quantifierneeds to establish narrow scope by LF. Of course,it is very hard to figure out what the relative scope of most andepistemic must in(5) is.Consequently, our evidence for theECP will have to involve different combinations of quantifiersand epistemic modals. We arestanding in front of anundergraduate residence at the Institute. Some lights are on andsome are off. We don’t knowwhere particular students live but we knowthat they are all conscientiousand turn their lights off whenthey leave. So, we clearlyknow that not all of the studentsare out(some lights are on andthey wouldn’ t beonif the students were away).It could infact be that all of themare home (the ones whose lights are off mayalready be asleep). But itis also possible that some of them are away.Since we don’t knowwhich student goes with whichlight, for everyparticular student it is compatible with our evidence that he orshehas left. Withthis background, consider the following sentence: (6) Everystudent may have left. a.every student x (mayx haveleft) true, *ECP b.may (every student have left) false, O K ECP Informantsreliably judge (6) tobe false in the scenario just sketched. This is predicted if the 6 Of course,many issues are glossedover here. See Musan1997 for in-depth exploration of thistopic. 176 KAIVONFINTELANDSABINEIATRIDOU ECPis operative. It would force (6) tobereadwith narrow scope for thequantifier everystudent, whichgives rise to a readingthat is false in our scenario. The ECP prohibits the reading where everystudent hasscope over the modal, a readingthat would be true in the given scenario. A raw truth-valuejudgment then supports our claim that there is anECP. Thejudgment is perhaps even sharper when we considera continuationof (6) thatwould beconsistentonly with the scope every s may, whichis ruled out by theECP. We expecta clear feelingof contradiction, and indeed, (7) isbeyond repair. 7 (7) *Everystudent may have left but not every one of themhas. Here isanother case showing that every cannothave