Requantification, Underquantification and Partial Focus in Indefinites

Abstract

Based on an intricate pattern concerning the interpretation of indefinites in both mono- and biclausal sentences with adverbial quantifiers, we propose an analysis which combines the idea that restrictor- and nucleus situations/events of adverbial quantifiers are related via initially underspecified matching functions (Rothstein 1995) with pragmatic assumptions concerning preferences for the specification of these matching functions as well as the independently motivated pragmatic principle Maximize Presuppositions! (MP, Heim 1991). We show that neither the traditional situation semantics approach to adverbial quantification which assumes both restrictor- and scope minimization (von Fintel 1994) nor a revision of this picture using neo-Davidsonian events (Herburger 2001) is able to account for the full pattern in a uniform manner. Finally, we provide additional evidence that the Novelty Condition (Heim 1982) does not exist as an independent principle and that its putative effects, where they occur, can be derived from MP (cf. Singh 2011).