Bare Plurals, Bare Conditionals, and Only
Bare Plurals, Bare Conditionals, and Only
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裸复数、裸条件和唯一
DOI：
10.1093/jos/14.1.1
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发表时间：
1997
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
K. Fintel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
K. Fintel
只有哺乳动物才能活着生产，只有女王在家才能飘扬旗帜，这些句子的构成语义是一个棘手的问题。提出的证据表明，只有在这里是修改一个潜在的命题(它的‘前置’)。在讨论了Only的语义之后，对前置的正确解释问题进行了探讨。如果前一事物能够被分析为具有存在论的量化力量，那就太好了。但这很难维持，因为在前结构本身遇到时，自然会被解读为具有类似法律的味道，在许多分析中，这归因于据称存在于其中的隐式操作符的语义。最后，我们分析了这些操作符的一些特殊性质，从而成功地为目标句提供了直观的充分解释。因此，这些复杂的结构可以用来探讨自然语言中隐含数量的本质。
The compositional semantics of sentences like Only mammals give live birth and The flag flies only if the Queen is home is a tough problem. Evidence is presented to show that only here is modifying an underlying proposition (its 'prejacent'). After discussing the semantics of only, the question of the proper interpretation of the prejacent is explored. It would be nice if the prejacent could be analyzed as having existential quantificational force. But that is difficult to maintain, since the prejacent structures when encountered on their own are naturally read as having a lawlike flavor, which in many analyses is attributed to the semantics of implicit operators alleged to be present in them. In the end, an analysis is presented which attributes some very particular properties to these operators and thereby succeeds in providing the target sentences with intuitively adequate interpretations. These complex constructions can therefore be used as a probe into the nature of implicit quantification in natural language.