Anyone might but everyone won’t
- 17 August 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Linguistic Society of America in Semantics and Pragmatics
- Vol. 14 (10), 1-27
- https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.14.10
Abstract
This paper investigates the interaction between quantifiers and epistemic modals, focusing on the contrast between every and any. It builds on observations made in von Fintel & Iatridou (2003), who noted that quantifiers seem unable to take wide scope across an epistemic modal. The proposal at the heart of the paper is that modes of epistemic access to domains of quantification play a role in accounting for apparent restrictions on scope. The paper takes the characterization of conceptual covers in Aloni (2001) as a starting point to argue that in the context of epistemic modals, constraints on epistemic access to the domain of quantification can give rise to scope illusions.Keywords
This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
- Quantification and Epistemic ModalityThe Philosophical Review, 2018
- Epistemics and attitudesSemantics and Pragmatics, 2013
- On Scope Relations between Quantifiers and Epistemic ModalsJournal of Semantics, 2010
- On universal Free Choice itemsNatural Language Semantics, 2010
- Broaden Your Views: Implicatures of Domain Widening and the “Logicality” of LanguageLinguistic Inquiry, 2006