Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ndmmz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T12:42:12.439Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Context Dependent Quantifiers and Donkey Anaphora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Get access

Extract

It is generally agreed that some anaphoric pronouns with (what appear to be) quantifier antecedents occur outside the syntactic scope (i.e., the c-command domain) of their antecedents. First, there is “donkey anaphora,” of both the conditional and relative clause varieties:

  1. (1) If Sarah owns a donkey, she beats it.

  2. (2) Every woman who owns a donkey beats it.

Without going through the details, let me just assert that there is good reason to think that the pronouns in (1) and (2) do not occur in the syntactic scope of the quantifier’ a donkey’ . A second sort of case in which a pronoun with a quantified antecedent occurs outside the syntactic scope of its quantifier antecedent is one in which the pronoun and its antecedent occur in different sentences.

A second sort of case in which a pronoun with a quantified antecedent occurs outside the syntactic scope of its quantifier antecedent is one in which the pronoun and its antecedent occur in different sentences. Examples of such “discourse anaphora,” from the very simple to the slightly complex, include:

  1. (3) A man is following Sarah. He is from the Internal Revenue Service.

  2. (4) A man is following Sarah. Melanie believes he is from the Internal Revenue Service.

  3. (5) It is possible that several students flunked at most five exams. Melanie believes they didn’t study for them.

  4. (6) Suzi ought to apologize to most of Ann’s dinner guests. It is certain that she insulted them. But it is unclear whether they noticed.

Type
Part A: Language
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berman, S. 1987. “Situation-Based Semantics for Adverbs of Quantification.“ In University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 12, ed. Blevins, J. and Vainikka, A.Amherst: University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Chierchia, G. 1995. Dynamics of Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, G. 1977. “Pronouns, Quantifiers and Relative Clauses (I).” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 8 (3): 467536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groenendijk, J. and Stokhof, M. 1991. “Dynamic Predicate Logic.” Linguistics and Philosophy 14: 39100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerts, B. 2002. “Donkey Business.” Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 129-56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heim, I. 1982. The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. Doctoral Thesis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Heim, I. 1990. “E-Type Pronouns and Donkey Anaphora.” Linguistics and Philosophy 13: 137-77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamp, H. 1981. “A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation.” In Formal Methods in the Study of Language, ed. J. Groenendijk, et al. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Centre.Google Scholar
Kanazawa, M. 1994. “Weak vs. Strong Readings of Donkey Sentences and Monotonicity Inference in a Dynamic Setting.” Linguistics and Philosophy 17: 109-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. C. 1987. “Pronouns, Descriptions and the Semantics of Discourse.“ Philosophical Studies 51: 341363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. C. 1991. “Instantial Terms, Anaphora and Arbitrary Objects.Philosophical Studies 61: 239265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. C. 1993. “Intentional Identity Generalized.Journal of Philosophical Logic 22:61-93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. C. 1994. “Anaphora and Operators.Philosophical Perspectives, 8: Logic and Language.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1988 [1975]. “Adverbs of Quantification.” In Papers in Philosophical Logic, 520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Neale, S. 1990. Descriptions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rooth, M. 1987. “NP Interpretation in Montague Grammar, File Change Semantics, and Situation Semantics.” In Generalized Quantifiers, ed. Gardenfors, P.237268. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, G. 1984. “Pronouns and Pronomial Descriptions: A New Semantical Category.Philosophical Studies 45: 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar