Remarks on Weak Cross-Over, Relational Nouns and Domain Restriction
Daniel Blair
University of Western Ontario
810 Whittier Place, NW
Washington DC 20012
lcutler@earthlink.net
Abstract. The recent interest in some of the phenomena traditionally associated with the
context dependence of quantificational expressions (QPs) has centered around the idea
that some constituents of a sentence might serve as the locus of domain restriction for
QPs might be present but lack for overt manifestation. In this essay, one such argument –
due to Stanley (2000) – is critically examined. Specifically, I will present a number of
different kinds of constructions where the predictions of a theory based upon
syntactically represented context variables are not confirmed.
Introduction. There is perhaps no kind of expression within natural language
which does not exhibit some sort of variability with respect to its interpretation. Cases
where the nature of this variability is more or less rigidly predictable come from the
domain of indexicals and demonstratives like ‘I’ and ‘that,’ but there are other plausible
examples. In particular, quantificational expressions (‘QPs’) seem to exhibit at least
some of the same general traits that other contextually variable expressions do. Stated
informally, the exact denotation of a quantifier like ‘the tallest student’ seems to vary
from one context of utterance to another. “The tallest student” can be understood in one
context to denote the tallest student within, say, a small class of university students,
understood on still other occasions to denote the tallest student within a given school
1
district. For many uses of quantificational expressions, the domain of the quantifier is
understood as restricted just to certain sets of objects, even though no explicit restriction
need appear alongside them.
How the facts regarding the context sensitivity of quantificational expressions are
to be captured within a semantic theory is a matter of some contention. There are at least
two options. Perhaps the inexplicitness of the restrictions holds no semantic or syntactic
secrets. Rather, domain restriction is a pragmatic process that essentially supplements, in
one way or another, our understanding of what a particular utterance is intended to
convey without necessarily telling us anything about what the sentence itself means. On
the other hand, perhaps the silence is accidental and a more fine-grained analysis will
disclose non-overt constituents to which we may localize the implicit restrictions. In this
paper, I shall be concerned with one variety of this second option which has gained some
notoriety recently, namely the view that the phenomenon of variability with respect to the
interpretation of quantifiers can be explained by positing a particular syntactic formative
which can be bound by other expressions or which may function like a demonstrative,
picking up domain restrictions within a context of utterance.
Since much of the
plausibility and explanatory depth of theories along these lines depends upon the parallel
behavior of the proposed null variables and explicit instances of pronouns, the discussion
will be concerned with the degree to which the parallel holds across a series of different
contexts. For concreteness, I shall be concerned with one set of arguments that purport to
establish the existence of this kind of null formative, that of Stanley (2001, 2002) and
Stanley and Szabo (2000).
2
The paper is structured as follows: The first section outlines the basic problem of
quantifier domain restriction is outlined and a brief exposition of Nominal Restriction
Theory (‘NRT’) is given. The second section presents in some detail the ‘Argument
from Bindability’ that has been used to motivate the view that there exists a
phonologically null syntactic constituent – what I shall call below a Null Domain
Restriction (‘NDR’) within quantificational and nominal expressions which explains how
it is that these expressions exhibit varying domains of quantification with respect to
differing linguistic and non-linguistic contexts. The remaining fifth sections present
various sorts of problem cases for this view. The upshot of this evidence is that NDRs, if
they exist at all, would have to be quite unlike any other sort of expression, null or
otherwise, which can be bound1.
Let me stress that my argument is directed to the idea of there being a constituent
of a sentence’s grammatical representation2 whose interpretation is keyed to the presence
of items that serve the restrict domains of certain classes of nominal expressions. One
could take the view that NDRs are constituents of semantic representations and leave the
syntactic claim go. But that would rob the view of its interest as a defense of the claim
that all truth conditional effects of context can be traced to elements in the Logical Form
of a sentence. It would also take away from the motivation NRT draws from syntactic
I shall not discuss at all any other sort of ‘implicit argument’ that has occasionally been
posited with respect to certain constructions. Nominal Restriction Theory has also been
critically discussed by Lepore and Cappelen (2002a, b), and Bach (2000), among others.
However, the criticisms I make below differ from these: I am concerned wholly with the
syntactic consequences of the NRT analysis.
1
2
More specifically: of the syntactic structure of a sentence over which semantic
interpretation is defined, what is usually referred to within versions of generative
grammar as ‘LF.’ See Hornstein, 1995 for an overview. This does not rule out that such
variables may be present at other levels of syntactic representation, of course.
3
facts that are independent of the phenomena in question. If the guiding thought behind
NRT is right, any formative like an NDR should be governed by syntactic constraints
that are operative with respect to other syntactic categories and processes. My strategy
below will be to press these analogies further, finding out where they break down.
1 The Context Sensitivity of Quantifiers and ‘NRT.’
Sentences like 1 - 4 present a
challenge to many theories of quantification in natural language:
1.
Every toy was broken
2.
The tallest student got the highest grade
3.
Fred’s parents decided to put everything under the Christmas tree at the last
minute.
4.
After everyone was gone, the thieves came out from their hiding places.
The challenge consists in the fact that the most natural interpretation of 1 does not mean
that every toy, near and far, was broken; rather, 1 is understood as asserting only that
every toy within some contextually relevant domain of quantification is broken. Thus,
the quantifier ‘every toy’ in 1 could be taken as equivalent to either 5 or 6 given the right
circumstances, e.g. one in which John’s toys is the topic of conversation. (I use italics to
designate domain restrictions.)
5.
Every toy that belongs to John
6.
Every toy I bought for Sam during the Holidays
4
Parallel considerations apply to 2 - 4. Although 2 could be used to make an assertion
about the academic achievements of the tallest student in the universe, the most natural
interpretation of 2 would take quantifier ‘the tallest student’ to have a considerably
smaller domain, e.g., perhaps just the tallest student in a given class or university. For 3,
the QP everything clearly does not denote absolutely everything in the universe. Rather,
all that is meant, perhaps, is that every parent in the relevant domain of discourse put
every present they had bought that year for Christmas under the Christmas tree in their
home. Roughly, the challenge is to explain how the quantifiers in sentences like 1 and 2
are understood as restricted in the ways that the quantifiers in 5 and 6 are explicitly
restricted, even when there is no overt restriction present3.
There are a number of options.
One could argue that restrictions like the
italicized ones in 5 and 6 are present4, in some sense, in 1 and 2, and only lack for overt
manifestation. That would imply that 1 and 7, for example,
7.
Every toy that belongs to John is broken
are truth conditionally equivalent within some range of contexts. Conversely, one might
argue that quantifier domain restriction is a pragmatic phenomenon, a matter of how
‘Roughly’ because explicit restrictions themselves may contain context sensitive
expressions which in turn would need to be restricted and so on. By making the
restrictions covert, Stanley and Szabo avoid this particular regress; see S and S (2000).
3
4
Whether or not one can assimilate these cases to more well understood instances of
syntactic ellipsis is doubtful; see Stanley’s discussion of Sellars in Stanley, 2002.
5
sentences like 1 and 2 are used and, as such, has no bearing upon the truth conditions of
the sentences in which quantifiers appear. I won’t review all the options here.
Assuming that 1 and 7 are truth conditionally equivalent within some context, one
attractive answer is to hold that the QP ‘Every toy’ is actually more structured than it
appears to be.
The extra dimension of structure comes from an unpronounced or
phonologically null element, which restricts the quantifier’s domain, acting in much the
same way that the italicized relative clauses above do. In a series of articles, Jason
Stanley5 (2002a, b) has developed a theory of quantifier domain restriction along these
lines. In particular, he holds that an unpronounced domain restriction is actually part of
the grammatical structure of the quantificational phrases whose domains they restrict.
The restriction acts in some ways like a demonstrative pronoun, picking up a contextually
salient domain from either the surrounding discourse or from an ongoing conversation.
In particular, the structure Stanley posits for a quantifier like ‘every toy’ is the following:
QP
3
Q
NP
Toy C(i)
Every
The item marked ‘C(i)’ is what I have called a ‘Null Domain Restriction’ (‘NDR’
hereafter) in light of the fact that it is supposed to both have the semantic properties of
overt restrictions and lack phonological content.
5
and with Zoltan Szabo (2000)
6
Significantly, Stanley holds that all nominal expressions have an NDR attached to
them as part of their syntactic representation. By contrast, other proposals for handling
some aspects of context dependence that posit ‘implicit arguments’ – e.g. Partee (1989) have only concerned a subset of nominals and adjectives, e.g., ‘relational nouns’ like
‘enemy,’ ‘foriegner’ or ‘opposite.’ In a quite direct way, NRT implies that quantifiers
themselves do not display contextual relativity. Rather, it is the nominal head whose
interpretation may vary and it is this variability that is inherited by the entire QP. Given
this facet of NRT, a nice parallel between syntactic and semantic structure obtains; for
every truth conditionally relevant way of restricting a domain, a grammatical element can
be found which is the locus of that way of restricting the domain. Domain restriction is
then a species of demonstrative reference, at least in many cases.
2. The Argument from Bindability. It is crucial to NRT that an NDR can pick up its
content – the domain restriction – from the linguistic context in which it appears in much
the same that pronouns and anaphoric noun phrases can pick up their antecedents within
the very sentences in which they occur. For example, in
8.
In all of John’s classes, he fails three students
‘Three students’ may be understood as denoting three students in each of John’s classes.
On NRT, this interpretation comes about through the presence of an NDR on ‘student’
being bound by the sentence initial prepositional phrase:
7
9.
In all of John’s classes, he fails three studentsC(i)
The apparent parallels between contextual variation of this sort and the binding of
pronominal elements by quantifiers is one of the main arguments for an approach like
NRT, on which such parallels fall out as part of the general case. Approaches which do
not posit such variables within the syntactic structure upon the semantic properties of a
sentence are determined have no clear way of accommodating such cases, a point stressed
by Stanley6.
The availability of binding and of linguistic antecedents implies that the same
conditions that apply to the binding of linguistic items like pronouns ought to apply to the
binding of NDRs by linguistic antecedents. The facts concerning 8 suggest that the
generalization holds. For example, just as the pronoun he can be understood as referring
to John, the NO student can also be bound by an element standing in roughly the same
structural relationship to it. More precisely, the NO student contains a variable that is
bound by the PP In John’s classes7. Strikingly, phenomena like the above can replicated
across a diverse range of data, e.g., comparative adjectives, … etc8.
6
2001.
7
I leave to one side the issue of the exact composition of the domain restriction when it is
determined by a linguistic antecedent.
8
Showing that context dependence exhibits some of the properties of binding and so
should be taken as testifying to the existence of elements within the logical form of
sentences supporting such relations also serves Stanley’s polemical purposes against
advocates of ‘unarticulated constituents.’ I will not have anything to say about Stanley’s
larger purposes in this paper.
8
In his 2001, the argument from binding is pushed even further9. Consider the
following:
10.
[Every boy]i loves hisi mother
11.
?His mother is loved by [every boy]i
12.
?Whoi does hisi mother like?
In 10, but not 11, binding between every boy and the genitive pronoun his is natural. This
would just appear to be a case of a quantifier’s having to stand in a structurally superior
position – from which is may ‘c-command’ the position in binds - to whatever elements it
may bind. Yet in 12, who seems to be in a structurally superior position to the pronoun it
would bind and the sentence is anomalous.
One way of explaining these facts is as follows: with respect to its relevant
structural properties, 12 is identical to 11, not 10. The object quantificational phrase
every boy in 8 moves covertly to a position structurally higher than that of the subject QP
his mother. On the supposition that QPs must move to a clause peripheral position in
order to determine their scope10, that means that this quantifier will have a scope that
includes that of the subject QP his mother. In the process of moving however, the
pronoun his is passed by or ‘crossed over.’ Moving past an embedded, co-indexed
pronoun like this is called a ‘weak crossover’ (‘WCO’) violation. A similar movement
9
See pgs. 423 – 4 of 2002.
10
Bear in mind that that Stanley assumes, following many others, that scope and binding
are directly related to syntactic structure and hence, that WCO effects are to thought of in
syntactic terms.
9
occurs in 12. 11 and 12 thus have structural representations in which a moved element
crosses over a co-indexed pronoun:
11a.
[Every Boy]i [hisi mother loves ti]
12a.
Whoi [ does hisi mother [like ti]]
No such problem arises with respect to 10 since the QP subject does not move past the
phrase that contains a co-indexed pronoun.
Now consider 13 and 14:
13.
[Every reporter]i was sponsored by a [local barC(i)]
14.
?[A local barC(i)] sponsored [every reporter]i
Stanley claims that what we find in 14 is the same thing we find in 12. In 14, the only
reading which appears to be available is the one in which the NP a local bar is not bound
by every reporter. To obtain a reading for a local bar on which it – or, more precisely,
the NDR on bar - would be bound by the QP every reporter, a quantifier would have to
cross a position containing an element that it binds. But then if 14 really is a case of
WCO, there must be something that is being crossed over, like the genitive pronoun in
10
12. If the NP local bar contains an NDR, then we have an explanation of the contrast.
This gives us something like an ‘existence proof’ for NDRs.11
The existence of examples like the above have been discussed previously in the
literature. But, to the best of my knowledge, Stanley is the first writer to link them
explicitly to cases of quantifier domain restriction of the sort that features in the argument
from bindability. And surely the existence of contextual variation which appears to
mimic the binding of explicit pronouns suggests that there is a deeper affinity between
the two cases. Positing a null variable, capable of occurring either bound or free, makes
the analogous patterning of data straightforwardly explicable as instances of the same
general phenomena. Moreover, pursuing arguments from WCO effects with relational
words makes sound methodological sense: to the extent that the same kinds of anomalies
appear in both pronominal as well as relational cases and is predictable from the syntactic
relationships each item bears to its antecedent, the case for NRT is made stronger.
3. Some Problematic Cases The argument regarding WCO effects implies that any NP
in a position structurally parallel to the subject in 11 will trigger grammatical anomaly if
another item is both the source of its restriction and occupies a position structurally
similar to the WH-phrase in 12 and has been extracted from a similar position. The case
that is particularly interesting is the one in which the object QP takes wide scope relative
11
This argument for the existence of a null formative having certain binding properties
was first made by Jim Higginbotham (1996). (Stanley and Szabo cite an early,
manuscript version of this paper, although the differences are not important here.) The
goal of Higginbotham’s argument – like that of Partee’s very similar 1989 - is more
restricted than the use to which they put it. Given the broadness of Stanley’s hypothesis
– all NPs carry an NDR – I am uncertain to what extent the examples above are
problematic for Higginbotham’s view.
11
to the subject QP. It is the unavailability of that reading which seemingly causes the
problem with example 14 above.
Alongside Stanley’s example though are cases that tell against the existence of an
NDR. Here are a few, using ‘relational NPs12’ and adjectives:
15.
A grandparent accompanied every student to his graduation.
16.
A favorite story helped put every toddler to bed.
17.
A friend helped every student move out of the dorms.
18.
A feared competitor made every boxer to train harder.
19.
An imminent deadline forced most reporters to cut lunch short
In each of the above sentences, the subject QP can be understood – and is most naturally
understood – as restricted by the object QP, which also has scope over it. Thus, in 15 the
domain of grandparents that is relevant is the domain of grandparents of the students who
are graduating. Supposing that the restricting QP every student takes wide scope relative
to the subject QP a grandparent, these sentences should be anomalous in the same way
that Stanley’s example is from above. That is, what we should have is the following:
…..[every student]i …[.... a grandparentC(i) …[....ti
12
See Mitchell, 1986
12
parallel to the configuration of 11a. The same applies to 16 - 19. But, contrary to the
prediction of the theory of NDRs, these sentences seem fine on the intended
interpretations.
Notice that there is a contrast with parallel sentences whose subject NPs contain
overt pronouns bound by the object QP (the a examples) or with sentences featuring a
potentially binding WH-phrase which overtly move past a subject NP containing a
pronoun, the classic configuration for WCO effects:
15a’
b.
16a’
b.’
17a’
b.’
18a’
b.
?Hisi grandmother accompanied every studenti to graduation
*[Which student]i did [hisi grandmother] accompany ti to graduation?
?Hisi favorite story helped put every toddleri to bed.
*[Which toddler]i did [hisi favorite story] help put ti to bed?
?His friend helped every student move out of the dorms.
*[Which student]i did [hisi friend] help move ti out of the dorms
?His competitor made every boxer train harder
*[Which boxer]i did [hisi competitor] make train harder
19a.’ ?His deadline forced every reporter to cut lunch short
b.
*[Which reporter]i did [hisi deadline] force to cut lunch short.
13
Although judgments are a bit delicate here – hence the term ‘weak cross over13’ – there
does seem to be some sort of contrast between 15 – 19 and 15’ – 19.’ NRT predicts that
all of these examples ought to pattern alike. They don’t.
Another class of examples show much the same thing:
20a.
[Impending court appearancesC(i)] explained the absence of [every star player]i
from the line-up.
b.
?[Hisi court appearance] explained the absence of [every star player]i from the
line-up.
21a.
Approaching police sirens tipped off none of the hackers that time was running
out.
b.
?[Hisi mother] tipped off [none of the hackers]i that time was running out.
In 20, the NP impending court appearances can be understood as restricted by the QP
every star player.
20b shows that binding a pronoun in a comparable position is
problematic. In 21a, approaching police sirens can be understood as denoting police
sirens that are approaching the hackers. Again, we find the same contrast with respect to
the adjective and a pronoun within a subject NP in 21b that we found in 20b. At the very
13
Although all speakers consulted registered the same contrasts between the a and b
examples.
14
least, these contrasts tell against the symmetry between instances of binding of pronouns
and the relation between relational nouns and their antecedents14.
4. More Cases Given the above facts, what is striking about NDRs, if they are syntactic
constituents of NPs, is their exceptional behaviour with respect to binding. In fact, we
can make a stronger point. In the above cases, what we found was that movement past a
supposed NDR did not entail a WCO violation, contrary to the expectation of the theory.
Next, we shall look at cases in which binding would be impossible on normal
assumptions: the potential binder is not in a position to bind the potential bindee quite
apart from any issue about context sensitivity. Nevertheless, the bindee can still be
understood as restricted by the frozen item.
To begin with, consider the following examples, where only the low scope
reading is possible for the object quantifier every girl:
24.
Some man expected to find every girl at the party
Some man  Every girl
*Every girl  Some man
There are other mechanisms that could be used here besides syntactic movement to
generate the right readings, e.g., the choice functions discussed by Yoad Winter and
others. See Winter (2001). But NRT seems to be committed to scope and binding being
determined through syntactic mechanisms. Recall that Stanley wants to support the
thesis that effects of contextual variation on the truth conditions of sentences can be
traced to elements within the logical form of a sentence. In the present case, this would
imply that binders for choice function variables be present within the syntactic structure
of a sentence. Although this may be a plausible view on some conceptions of what the
syntactic structure of a sentence is, it does not appear to be a conception of syntactic
structure congenial to the aims of NRT.
14
15
In 24, the quantifier every girl in the subordinate clause cannot take scope over the
quantifier in the super-ordinate, matrix clause. Explanations vary here, but, to a first
approximation, it seems that when a QP is contained within a syntactic phrase that is ‘too
complex’ in some sense, its ability to take scope outside that phrase is compromised.
Similar phenomena appear with respect to the extraction of WH-phrases:
25a.
b.
Why did John say that Mary left early
Why didn’t John say that Mary left early
25a can be understood as a request for the reason for John’s having said that Mary left
early or it can taken as a request for the reason that Mary left early, according to John.
Both readings are possible. In 25b, only the first reading possible. The difference seems
to be due to the interfering factor of negation. Similar facts hold for scope15:
26a. Some thief tried to rob every store last night


15
Notice that binding is out independently in these cases, since movement past a coindexed pronoun would provoke a crossover violation. Cases in which negation appears
to block extraction have been much discussed over the last decade alongside other cases
of so called ‘weak islands.’ See Ross, 1984, Szabolsci and Zwarts 1997 and Honcoop
1998 for discussion.
16
b.
Some thief didn’t try to rob every store last night

*
In 26a, both scope orders are possible, although, when there is an intervening negation,
the inverted reading is no longer possible.
This suggests the following strategy for testing NRT: if the binder of a NDR is
‘trapped’ in a position from which binding is not possible, then it ought not to be possible
for the putative NDR to be understood as bound by the trapped item. If the QP in the
matrix clause is understood as restricted by the QP in the lower clause, then whatever it is
that explains the restriction cannot be an instance of binding since binding requires that
the binder be in a hierarchically superior position to the bindee.
With this in mind, consider the following sentences:
28.
Some manager managed to deceive every shareholder in the company


29.
Some manager didn’t manage to deceive every shareholder in the company

*
17
In 28, either scopal order seems possible. But in 29, negation appears to block the ability
of the object of ‘deceive’ to take scope over the subject QP. Negation appears to freeze
the downstairs QP in place. Note that, whether or not negation is present, it does not
appears to be possible for a pronoun in the subject QP to be bound by the object of
‘deceive:’
30.
?His hand-picked manager (didn’t) manage to deceive every shareholder in the
company
Suppose then that 29 is interpreted in the only permissible scope order, i.e. with ‘some
manager’ having scope over ‘every shareholder.’ Keeping 30 in mind, what we would
expect to find is that a variable within the nominal ‘manager’ can’t be bound by ‘every
shareholder’ without engendering anomolous reading similar to what we found with
respect to 14 above involving relational nouns. Recall that it was cases like that that
seemed to reveal the presence of a null phrase. All the same though, it appears that
‘manager’ can be interpreted as ‘manager of the shareholder’s company’ without
anomaly. Note that this is so even negation doesn’t block extraction the object QP. As
30 shows, with or without negation, binding into the subject QP by the downstairs QP
shouldn’t be possible. The lack of a parallel here between binding and relational nouns
thus tells against assimilating the two cases.
One could argue that the interpretation of the NDR in the subject nominal is set
independently in this case and so there is no substantial problem for NRT. The idea
would be that the reason we don’t find a WCO-like violation here is that the NDR on
18
‘manager’ takes on its value independently of the value of ‘every shareholder’ as,
indeed, it must if a WCO violation is to be avoided. But this sort of defense comes at a
price.
In particular, one wonders why it isn’t available for every case, in particular for
the case involving relational nouns that motivated the argument from WCO effects. Why
doesn’t similar discourse level binding of an NDR rescue those cases? More importantly
though, this sort of reply robs NRT of one of its most attractive features: binding of
NDRs ought to pattern with binding of pronouns; where we find a problem in one case, a
parallel difficulty ought to show up in the analogous case. Thus, both 28 and 29 ought to
aptern with 30. The reply we are considering now would undercut NRT precisely at its
strongest point, for it seem to say that binding violations of NDRs are rescueable by
pragmatic factors. What principled reason then can be given for saying that all cases of
alleged bound domains are governed by ‘pragmatic factors?16’
5.
Nominal versus Quantificational Restriction. Let us consider another aspect of NRT
that is every bit as radical as the claim that there is a special null formative that is the
locus of the contextual sensitivity of QPs. This is the claim that quantifiers themselves
exhibit no contextual variability. Rather, the contextual variation we find with respect to
QPs derives from their nominal complements. The strong reading of this claim is that all
nominals, and not just those appearing with explicit determiners, have an NDR and hence
are liable to contextual variation. There seem to be contexts though in which this claim
would need to be qualified, perhaps by making the addition of an NDR optional in some
16
These last paragraphs were prompted by the comments of an anonymous referee, for
which I am grateful.
19
respect. Left without some such qualification, the thesis would appear to allow for
readings of nominal expressions that aren’t possible. For example, consider what such a
thesis would entail for ‘bare plural17’ expressions like the NP ‘elephants’ in
31.
John likes elephants
This sentence does not seem to have a reading on which John would like only some
particular set of elephants. Perhaps kind denoting terms like these are exceptions in some
sense, but one would like to know why exactly18.
As mentioned above, the generality of NRT dictates that quantifiers themselves
do not have varying domains. Rather, it is the nominal head that does. This makes the
predication that, e.g., conjoined NPs ought to be capable of having different domains.
Thus, for example in
32.
After leaving, the boys and girls did their home-work.
NRT should allow both nominals to take distinct antecedents, as seems plausible in many
cases. Perhaps we are discussing the studying habits of the girls from a local private
school and the boys from a nearby high school. But in other cases, it does seem as
17
Cf. Carlson, 1977
18
One might say, in the spirit of the claim that NDRs are akin to incorporated items and
that the presence of the plural ‘-s’ affix interferes with the ability of the NDR to
incorporate onto the nominal head of the expression much as other null morphemes can’t
be incorporated onto a word in the presence of an overt morpheme. We shall look at this
claim in more detail below, but here it should be noted that the presence ‘-s’ itself can’t
be blocking the availability of contextually sensitive readings, as attested by the examples
of nominals like ‘the boys’ which do allow such readings.
20
though the boys and the girls have to belong to the same domain; it is hard – although
perhaps not impossible - to see how one might be talking about the boys who left and the
girls who stayed behind for example. More cautiously, although one can clearly imagine
cases in which the domains do vary, if one of the nominals is restricted by a linguistic
antecedent, the other one must be as well. One wonders why that is the case on NRT,
since that theory would appear to allow for restrictions to vary in their reference as much
as a demonstrative would.
Still more troublesome are cases like the following:
33.
Every boy in the garage and every boy in the basement formed a band
34.
*Every boy and every boy formed a band.
One wonders why 34 cannot have a reading like that in 33. It is very hard to see how
there could be a nontrivial reading of 34 in this case. It is true that some coordinated QPs
allow for independent domains, e.g., the following sentence does not seem especially
unusual:
35.
Some man and some man met in the park
But it is curious why such a reading is out on 34 if domain sensitivity is solely a matter of
the nominal and is not a matter of the quantifier or its properties19. For much the same
Consider also in this light cases of ‘Determiner Sharing:’
i.
After the graduation ceremony, the girls will drink whiskey and boys drink gin
19
21
reason, it seems like 36a has, to the extent that it is interpretable, the same interpretation
as does 36b even though, on NRT, there ought to be an interpretation of 36a which is
equivalent to that of 36c:
36a.
Few policemen and few policemen respect each other
b.
Few policemen respect each other
c.
Few policemen from the 53rd precinct and few policemen from the 109th respect
each other.
The coordinated subject DP in 36a seems, at best, redundant and it is hard to see how 36a
and 36c could have the same truth conditions.
7. Conclusion. In this essay, I have explored the idea that variables of the sort that have
been posited to account for some of the facts concerning relational nouns and adjectives
can be extended to the interpretation of quantifiers are constituents of syntactic
representations. Despite some suggestive evidence for this position, the facts described
throughout this essay indicated that such constituents behave in ways that seem quite
exceptional. This does not, by itself, rule out the presence of such variables within the
In this case, the NP boys appears without an overt determiner, although it seems to
‘share’ one with the girls. What’s remarkable about these contexts is that, if one
understands the girls in question to be restricted to, say the ones that just graduated, it is
hard not to apply the same restriction to the boys in question. In these cases, the nominal
heads seem to have the same restriction. What both nominals seem to have in common is
that they are tied to a single determiner, in some sense. This suggests that that domains
restriction is not as independent from quantifier as one would expect on the NRT view.
For more determiner sharing, see McCawley 1993, Johnson 1996, Lin 2000
22
syntactic structure of a sentence, although it does prompt serious questions about their
nature.
Thanks to Howard Lasnik, Ernie Lepore, Paul Pietroski, Sam Wheeler, Jason Stanley and
the comments of two anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions of this paper.
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