On the Nature of Inverse Scope Readings

Abstract

In generative grammar, inverse scope readings, for example the reading that each girl has a (different) boy loving her for the sentence some boy loves every girl, are generally treated as being on a par with surface scope readings, for example the reading that each boy has a (different) girl he loves for the sentence every boy loves some girl. According to the standard analysis, they are both generated through the compositional computation applied to an LF representation, and the quantity nominal expression taking wide scope is analyzed as a generalized quantifier. This paper argues that these assumptions are not suitable for inverse scope readings. It demonstrates that inverse scope readings are discourse phenomena: the emergence of inverse scope readings necessarily involves a discourse process. Furthermore, it maintains that when a given quantity nominal expression supports inverse-scope-taking, it is understood to be a sum of singular-individuals rather than a generalized quantifier. One crucial implication of the paper is that the study of sentence-level syntax through sentence interpretations involving quantity nominal expressions is not as straightforward as previously thought.