On The Analysis of Scope Ambiguities in Comparative Constructions: Converging Evidence from Real-Time Sentence Processing and Offline Data
This paper compares two accounts of an ambiguity that arises when a comparative phrase containing an exactly differential is embedded under an intensional operator (Heim 2000). Under one account, the comparative phrase is responsible for the ambiguity (the er-scope theory), and, under the other, the...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Linguistic Society of America
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/125246 |
| Summary: | This paper compares two accounts of an ambiguity that arises when a comparative phrase containing an exactly differential is embedded under an intensional operator (Heim 2000). Under one account, the comparative phrase is responsible for the ambiguity (the er-scope theory), and, under the other, the ambiguity is attributed to the exactly phrase (the exactly-scope theory). We present converging evidence from the distribution of de re and de dicto readings and real time sentence processing that supports the er-scope theory. Since the er-scope theory presupposes a quantificational analysis of the comparative, such an analysis is ipso facto supported by our results. Keywords: Comparatives; Scope; Sentence Processing |
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