Can DP Be a Scope Island?

Introduction

Sauerland [1] uses data from inverse linking—cf. [2]—to motivate quantifier raising (QR) out of DP, proposing to derive Larson’s generalization—cf. [3]– regarding the scopal integrity of DP via an Economy-based constraint on QR (cf. [4]).

This squib is in four parts. I first lay out Sauerland’s three arguments for QR out of DP. I present (a slightly modified version of) his mechanism for constraining QR. I show that it both over- and under- generates. I conclude by arguing that the readings Sauerland uses to motivate his account don’t result from an islandrespecting QR mechanism. In short, each of the cases Sauerland considers involve DPs with ”special” scopal properties: plural demonstrative DPs, bare plural DPs, and antecedent-contained deletion (ACD)-hosting DPs. The argument that apparent wide-scope readings of plural demonstratives are only apparent is motivated using (so far as I know) new data from English, while the latter two cases receive independent motivation from the literature. The conclusion is that the question posed in the title of this paper can be answered in the affirmative.

Thanks to Chris Barker, Emma Cunningham, Polly Jacobson, Ezra Keshet, Philippe Schlenker, Uli Sauerland, Anna Szabolcsi, and an anonymous reviewer. This work was supported in part by NSF grant BCS-0902671 to Philippe Schlenker and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to the author.