Non-conservative construals with proportional quantifiers: Theoretical and experimental considerations

Authors

GEHRKE Berit ŠIMÍK Radek WĄGIEL Marcin

Year of publication 2023
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description In this talk, we investigate constructions with proportional quantifiers that give rise to conservative as well as non-conservative readings. We show that previous accounts based on focus sensitivity make incorrect predictions with respect to non-conservative readings. Our observations are based on theoretical considerations, which we then aim to tease apart in a series of experiments. We argue against ascribing a crucial role to focus for the non-conservative reading to arise, in taking focus to merely be derivative from the requirement of non-conservative quantifiers to appear low, paired with a general rule for sentential stress placement. We argue that the non-conservative effect comes about due to semantic incorporation and, in the case of intransitives, the structure is essentially a kind of existential construction.

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