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Distributivity, Maximality, and Floating Quantifiers DISTRIBUTIVITY, MAXIMALITY, AND FLOATING QUANTIFIERS by CHRISTINE M. BRISSON A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Linguistics written under the direction of Veneeta Dayal and approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 1998 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Distributivity, Maximality, and Floating Quantifiers by CHRISTINE BRISSON Dissertation Director: Veneeta Dayal This dissertation argues that the widely-accepted analysis of all and both as universal quantifiers is incorrect, and proposes instead that all/both are modifiers that place a boundary on the range of otherwise contextually-available interpretations allowed with definite plurals. It is argued that this proposal offers wider empirical coverage of the semantic and distributional properties of all/both than previous accounts. The range of meanings of sentences with definite plurals is examined, and it is argued that a theory of distributivity that assigns universal force to distributed plural noun phrases is empirically inadequate. A change to the theory of distributivity is proposed in which the context-sensitive variable in the domain of the distributivity operator (the D operator) can be assigned a value that weakens its universal force. It is further proposed that all/both interact with the D operator by restricting the range of values that can be assigned to the resource domain variable, ensuring that the universal force of the D operator is not weakened. This accounts for the "strengthening" effect of all/both on the quantification associated with definite plurals. Because all interacts with distributivity, it has the same "scope" as distributivity. This explains some differences between definite descriptions with all and quantified NP's with every that are unexplained if all is analysed as a universal quantifier. In particular, the different scopal possibilities of all and every in direct object position, and their differences in distribution with ii collectivizing adverbial phrases, are explained. In addition, the limited distribution of all with collective predicates is accounted for by the proposal that lexically collective predicates belonging to certain aktionsart classes can contain a "hidden" D operator. Finally, a theory of "floating" quantifiers in which movement does not play a central role is proposed, and argued to provide a better account for the distribution of floated all/both and for the relationship between all/both in their prenominal and floated positions. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While in the midst of writing this dissertation, I imagined it would be great fun to finally get to the stage of writing the acknowledgments because not only would it mean that I was near the end, it would mean the chance to write about my mentors and friends and how much they mean to me. Now that I am in that stage, I am surprised to find out how hard it is to do justice to the debt I feel to the people who helped shape my work and my life as a graduate student. I could not have asked for a better dissertation advisor than Veneeta Dayal. From the first day that she saw that there might be a generals paper topic lurking in my interest in both, she always seemed to know what I wanted to say before I knew it myself. Her linguistic intuitions are unerring and I found that whenever I ignored or set aside her suggestions I did so at my own peril. In addition to her linguistic expertise, her guidance in navigating the intellectual journey of writing a dissertation is something every graduate student should have, and I am grateful to her. I always came away from my discussions with Viviane Déprez invigorated and excited about doing linguistics. Arguing with her was a lot of fun. Of course, most of the time she was right, but it seemed I always figured that out much later, and going through the process helped me immeasurably. I am grateful to her for improving this dissertation, and hopefully my future work, by among other things never getting tired of telling me to look at the idea behind the formalism or the rule. One of the things I liked most about working with Roger Schwarzschild is that whenever I handed him a draft, he always zeroed in on the core of it, and reframed what I was trying to get across in such a way that I could turn it over and examine it from a new perspective to see if it was what I really wanted to say. Needless to say, many times the answer was no. In addition, I wish to iv thank him for his insights and suggestions thared so many good suggestions on so many aspects of the dissertation that what I couldn't manage to incorporate in the dissertation will give me hearty food for thought in the years to come. I am also grateful for having had the opportunity to work with Angelika Kratzer. She generously shared with me some of her insights into event semantics, and provoked me with her questions, and the dissertation emerged much the better for it. For discussion of various parts of this dissertation, in various stages of its evolution, I wish to thank Eric Bakoviü, Olga Babko-Malaya, Maria Bittner, Tom Ernst, Bill Ladusaw, Fred Landman, Peter Lasersohn, Jason Merchant, Susan Rothstein, Yael Sharvit, Colin Wilson,Yoad Winter, my fellow students at Rutgers, and audiences at SALT VII, the CUNY syntax lunch, and Johns Hopkins. The graduate program in linguistics at Rutgers began the year my classmates and I arrived. From the beginning, the faculty were committed to doing their part to make it a challenging, bustling, and fun place to be. In particular, I want to thank Jane Grimshaw and Alan Prince for their constant attention to, and understanding of, the many intellectual, administrative, financial, etc. etc. needs of graduate students, and for always bringing good beer. I want to thank my friends and fellow students in the linguistics department for helping make Rutgers such a good place to be a grad student. Special thanks to Strang Burton and Vieri Samek- Lodovici for going first, toYael Sharvit for coffee talk on linguistics and life, to Ed Keer and Kris Jaeger for great dinner parties, and to Eric Bakoviü for making everything so much fun. While I was working on my linguistics degree, all the while I had a secret other life as a residence counselor at Douglass College. Although at times it was difficult, I'm glad I had the chance to work with the great women who work for, and attend, Douglass. I think it helped keep v me grounded to work so closely with smart, interesting people who don't know or care what a D operator is. In particular I want to thank Kim Owens for always understanding exactly how things are. Finally, I wish to thank my family. First my parents, who gave me innumerable gifts but perhaps the most relevant here being determination and self confidence. My brothers, Mike and Danny, and my sister Nancy, make this world a better place. And I thank Marc Meola for sharing the journey with me. He always told me things would be ok, even when I didn't want him to, and he was right. vi Table of Contents Chapter 1: Floating Quantifiers 1 Introduction. ..............................................1 1.1 The distribution of all, both, and each .......................................2 1.2 The category of floating quantifiers .........................................4 1.2.1 Arguments that all is not a determiner-quantifier ............................6 1.2.1.1 Evidence from its distribution: prenominal all .......................6 1.2.1.2 Evidence from discourse anaphora ................................9 1.2.1.3 Evidence from questions........................................9 1.2.1.4 "Semantic" evidence..........................................13 1.2.2 Both. ................................................16 1.2.2.1 Arguments that both is not a determiner-quantifier...................17 1.2.3 Possible problems for the modifier proposal ...............................18 1.2.3.1 Both + CN. .................................................18 1.2.3.2 Partitive constructions .........................................20 1.3 The Syntax of all/both and the phenomenon of "floating" .......................21 1.4 The semantics of all. 22 1.4.1 The maximizing effect................................................22 1.4.2 Taub's discussion of distributive subentailments............................25 1.4.3 A problem with the maximizing effect....................................27 1.5 An outline of things to come ..............................................29 Chapter 2: Plurality and Nonmaximality 2 Introduction. .. .................................................31 2.1 Distributivity and collectivity .............................................32 2.2 Nonmaximality. 37 2.2.1 Nonmaximality and reciprocals .........................................38 2.2.1.1 Williams, and Heim, Lasnik, and May ............................42 2.2.2 Yoon's theory of the lexicon and weak distributivity .........................45 2.2.3 Taking stock of nonmaximality .........................................50 2.2.3.1 Nonmaximality is affected by lexical meaning ......................50 2.2.3.2 Nonmaximality is affected by the size of the plurality ................50 2.2.3.3 Nonmaximality affects collectives and distributives ..................50 2.2.3.4 Nonmaximality is quantificational ...............................51 vii 2.2.3.5 The form of the DP interacts with nonmaximality ...................51 2.2.3.6 All is incompatible
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