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Intervention Effects Revisited

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Part of the book series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory ((SNLT,volume 83))

Abstract

I investigate the claim that some of the semantic properties that Qs intrinsically display have an important impact on their external syntax. In order to do so, I consider intervention effects in more detail. Universal Quantifiers (∀Qs) (positive and negative) are used as (potential) interveners, while wh-phrases in-situ and un N are the (potential) moving elements. I show that the scope possibilities of these latter Qs with respect to ∀Qs as well as to negation call for an analysis in terms of locality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Baunaz and Patin 2009 note that although speakers are reluctant to utter wh-phrases in-situ under neg-islands, their utterances generally involved that special ‘specific’ prosody. Note though that extraction out of neg islands of specific wh-phrases in-situ were generally well accepted by informants. See also Starke 2001.

  2. 2.

    Range corresponds to our partitivity and specificity to our specificity (Chapter 2, Section 2.1.2.2).

  3. 3.

    Degrees in acceptability of wh-phrases extractions with whether and how interveners are higher if they embed non-finite clauses, (i):

    (i)

    a.

    What is it unclear whether to repair?

    (Starke 2001: 19, (44a))

     

    b.

    What is it unclear how to repair?

    (Starke 2001: 19, (44b))

  4. 4.

    As for the crucial question why classical SIs do not block covert wh-phrasal movement but do block overt phrasal movement, I refer the reader to Starke’s 2001 dissertation.

  5. 5.

    Under the reading ∃ > ∀ in (29b), there are multiple events of thinking about some specific student by each of the professors, i.e. specific noun phrases do not necessarily take widest scope (vs. Baunaz 2005).

  6. 6.

    Under the reasonable assumption that the [+wh] feature of C° needs to be checked, wh-movement is obligatory at one point of the derivation (or at least some kind of wh-movement). Being structurally high, the wh-item in SpecCP takes widest scope. Intervention effects are expected to show up if they interact with another Q-element.

  7. 7.

    See Chapter 2, Section 2.1.2. Potential counterexamples to the judgement given in (34a) (and to the analysis that follows) are those given in Zubizaretta 2003. According to her, wh in-situ phrases get obligatory wide scope over chacun in (i):

    (i)

    Chacun (d’entre eux) devrait inviter qui?

    *(PL) ; (SP)

     

    ‘Each of them should invite whom?’

    (Zubizaretta 2003: 5, (16b))

    My informants do not like (i) as a real question, though. Yet, the following sentences, with wide scope of a heavy wh-phrase in-situ, are perfect, even for my informants. Contrary to (34a), though, (ii) and (iii) are grammatical. This is unexpected.

    (ii)

    Q:

    Les enfants se sont mis à table. Chacun (d’entre eux) a droit à combien de

      

    pizzas ?

      

    The children have sat at the table. Each (of them) is entitled to how many

      

    pizzas?

     

    A:

    Chacun (d’entre eux) a droit à trois pizzas

      

    Each (of them) is entitled to three pizzas (Zubizaretta 2003: 4, (12))

    (iii)

    Q:

    Pierre a acheté plusieurs livres. Il a envoyé chacun des livres à qui ?

      

    Pierre bought several books. He sent each of the books to whom?

     

    A:

    Il a envoyé chacun des livres à l’un de ses amis

      

    He sent each of the books to one of his friends (Zubizaretta 2003: 4, (13))

    Yet, compare this with (iv), which involves individual level predicates. No event variable is available and distribution fails:

    (iv)

    a. *

    Chacun (d’entre eux) connaît qui?

      

    Each   (of them) knows whom

     

    b. ??

    Chacun (d’entre eux) connaît combien de théorèmes ?

      

    each (of them)

    knows how many of.theorems

      

    ‘how many theorems does each of them know?’

    (iv) is ruled out, as expected, but not by RM, but by a failure of distribution. Unfortunately, I have no solution to the problematic case in (ii) and (iii). A possible way to tackle this problem is to investigate the nature of chacun (d’entre eux): contrarily to chacun des N, chacun (d’entre eux) involves the partitive preposition de, i.e. it might well be the case that chacun des N and chacun d’entre eux involve different structures, as well as different interpretations (specific vs. partitive), yielding different scope relationships with wh-phrases. This needs to be worked out, though.

  8. 8.

    Thanks to Genoveva Puskás and Luigi Rizzi (p.c) for discussions and for helping me with the formulation of this principle.

  9. 9.

    Note that the Strength Principle has been discovered thanks to scope-taking items in in-situ position. Whether it holds of visible ex-situ movement remains to be tested. For instance, when chacun occupies the subject position, ex-situ wh-phrases are easily extracted, whereas in-situ wh-phrases aren’t (see Section 5.1.2.4, ex. (71a)):

    (i)

    Qu’est-ce que chacun des enfants a fait?

     

    What is it that each of the children has done

    Ex-situ constructions are left for future research. See also fn. 13.

  10. 10.

    De Swart 1992 considers all interveners with split-DP constructions (in French, but also in German and Dutch), and observes that these constructions systematically show weak islands. She argues that the notion of A’-specifier is inadequate to describe weak islands interveners.

  11. 11.

    See Chapter 2, Sections 2.1.2.1 and 2.1.3.3 for differences with our analysis.

  12. 12.

    Recall that for Chang 1997, Cheng and Rooryck 2000, wh-phrases in-situ cannot interact with scope Islands. (67a) is then ungrammatical for them. See Chapter 2, Section 2.1.2.1.

  13. 13.

    A second difference is related to scope. Whereas covert and overt movement of wh-phrases past specific ∀Qs are always forbidden, (71) and (72), the constraint can be somehow relaxed with combien de N. In (ia), both the PL and the SP readings are available, as is attested by the availability of past-participle agreement (Obenauer 1992). In (ib), agreement is compulsory. (i) strongly contrasts with (68), which is ungrammatical (reconnaître ‘to recognize’ has been replaced by faire ‘to make’). The distinction between the two sets of examples is puzzling. The Strength Principle can deal with (68) and (71), but not with (i): chacun should block movement of the wh-phrase. Note moreover that if chacun is a FQ, the sentence gets degraded, (ii), but not as much as (68b):

    (i)

    a.

    Je voudrais savoir combien de fautes chacun a fait/faites

      

    I would-want know how many of errors.fem.pl each has made/fem.pl

      

    (Obenauer 1992)

     

    b.

    Je voudrais savoir combien chacun a fait/*es de fautes

      

    I would-want know how many each has made/fem.pl of errors.fem.pl

      

    ‘I would like to know how many errors each made’

    (ii)

    ?

    Je voudrais savoir combien de fautes les filles ont chacune *fait/faites

      

    I would-want know how many errors.fem.pl the girls have each made.fem.pl

    If wh-phrases in-situ and combien de N were identical, the grammaticality of (i) is unexpected, in view of the ungrammaticality of (71b). With respect to the constructions discussed in (68), (i) and (ii) are doubly unexpected. The difference might also be due to the fact that the Strength Principle holds only of in-situ elements (see fn.9). If this is the case, though, (68) (in particular) is left unexplained. I have no answer to this puzzle, and leave it to further research.

  14. 14.

    On the basis of the availability of specific un Ns intermediated scope, Ihsane 2008 gets rid of the Choice function analysis of Reinhart 1997. The Choice function analysis does not take into account the fact that specific un N (S-RefP, for Ihsane), involving both wide scope and intermediate scope, involves specificity, and that this information is intrinsic to the DP, contrasting with partitive un N and non-presuppositional un N. Since my typology of un Ns is quite similar to that of Ihsane and that her following arguments are based on that typology, as well as the syntax of these elements, let me just quote the author. She says that there is

    […] no explanation as to why an indefinite takes widest or intermediate scope is provided. Furthermore, the fact that the predicate may be responsible for the existential reading of some indefinites is not acknowledged. That not all indefinites assert existence is not acknowledged either. Although Reinhart mentions that indefinites may also be standard existential generalized quantifiers (Q-un-NPs, [i.e. partitive un N]), she seems to suggest that this assumption is not crucial and that it can be dropped (1997: Section 6.2). In other words, a single interpretative procedure could be sufficient to analyze indefinites. (Ihsane 2008: 115–116)

    Ihsane 2008 and Chapter 2, Section Section 2.1.4 show that we need at least a three-way distinction of un Ns, based on their interpretive as well as their scope behaviors and their intonations.

  15. 15.

    Note that if quel accusé ‘which accused’ is replaced by the extremely specific wh-phrase lequel des accusés ‘which one of the accused’ in (63), the sentence becomes perfect. I haven’t discussed at all this latter construction, but the fact that it is ‘morphologically’ specific (involving the definite specific Det le- ‘the’) predicts that it should be able to move out and to take wide scope, which it actually does. This last fact is problematic, though, since it constitutes a clear violation of RM.

  16. 16.

    For discussion about an alternative analysis, see Baunaz and Puskás 2008.

  17. 17.

    Note that once the in-situ (i.e. the covert movement) problem is solved, another problem shows up: I have claimed that partitive and specific wh-phrases undergo covert phrasal movement (Chapter 2, Section 2.1.5). Covert phrasal movement is the phonologically null counterpart of overt phrasal movement. So how is it that any type of wh-phrase is blocked in SIs with overt movement, while both specific and partitive wh in-situ are fine in these configurations? At this point, I have no answer to that crucial question.

  18. 18.

    This question was partly answered in Section 5.1.2, suggesting on the basis of partial wh movement in French that there should be different positions in which all these features are checked.

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Baunaz, L. (2011). Intervention Effects Revisited. In: The Grammar of French Quantification. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 83. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0621-7_5

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